


Silence is Not Golden

by 11_Gadget_27



Series: Confessions [1]
Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Angst, Attempt at Humor, M/M, Male Slash, Non-Reaper AU, Smut, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Voyeurism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-26
Updated: 2013-12-26
Packaged: 2018-01-06 04:29:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 27,765
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1102412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/11_Gadget_27/pseuds/11_Gadget_27
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A fill for this prompt: http://masseffectkink.livejournal.com/5405.html?thread=23242525#t23242525<br/>I had to make just a few changes, but nothing all that big. Enjoy.<br/>Also got talked into filling this one too:<br/>http://masseffectkink.livejournal.com/6870.html?thread=30556886#t30556886</p>
            </blockquote>





	Silence is Not Golden

“Silence is Not Golden”

 

Two weeks and four days into his Spectre training, Nihlus Kryik was pulled from the depths of an exhausted sleep by the sound of a steady thumping against his wall. It took a few minutes of listening and puzzling over the rhythmic noise before his fatigued brain finally figured out what it was. His mentor Saren had the room next to his and that was definitely the sound of him fucking someone against the wall.  
  
 _Holy shit._  
  
Nihlus hadn’t even known the older turian possessed a sex drive but judging from the cadence of that pounding, the bastard liked it hard and fast. He could vaguely hear the moans of Saren’s lover but only enough to tell it was another turian, not that his mentor had ever seemed inclined toward asari.  
  
 _Fuck, I can’t just lay here and listen to that. Couldn’t they have gone to a hotel or something?_  
  
The rhythmic thumping increased in tempo suddenly, enough so that items on Nihlus’ desk rattled and fell over.  
  
 _Spirits he’s really giving it to her. Must have been a long time since Saren got his dick wet. Oh fuck I do not want to think about his dick. Spirits-dammit. Time to leave, go do something else. Get the fuck out of here._  
  
Nihlus threw his blankets aside and rolled to his feet. He tended to sleep in the clothes he’d worn all day so there was no need to get dressed, just to grab his shoes. He’d take a walk around Illium, maybe go to a bar and wait for Saren’s woman to leave. With any luck the old man wouldn’t even know he was gone.  
  
Of course it didn’t work out like that. He had barely made it a meter from his room when Saren’s door slid open and the man himself stepped out. Nihlus tried not to look at him, knowing his expression would reveal what’d heard through the wall but when the smell of pheromones hit him, rather the smell of male and only male pheromones, surprise left him with little choice.  
  
Nihlus’ mandibles dropped open. Saren was half naked wearing only pants that hung far too loosely from his hips, the top button undone and exposing his lower abdomen. It wasn’t the uniform shade of grey that held his stare, rare when the flesh of most turians was a lot lighter than their plates, it was that Saren’s torso was covered in scratches that had the barest amount of blood beading along the surface of his skin. It didn’t look like he was actively bleeding and the cuts were so shallow that Nihlus knew he probably wouldn’t have seen them had Saren not been standing so close. Then his attention was drawn to the base of his mentor’s pale throat and the more than one deep bite mark but none of them were in the sacred place reserved for a mate.

Saren passed him and went to get himself a drink, hardly sparing Nihlus a glance. Even his back was covered in the same superficial injuries and he had talon marks that ran down from his hips and disappeared into his pants. It didn’t seem like he was in any pain, leading Nihlus to believe he enjoyed being cut up in so many places.  
  
 _Fuck me, he must like it rough to let himself be marked up like that._  
  
“Heading out Nihlus?”  
  
“Hmm?” His gaze snapped up to Saren’s face and the self-satisfied slant of his mandibles. “What?”  
  
“I asked if you were heading out.”  
  
The Spectre was standing right next to him, a glass held loosely in his hand. The scent of sex and blood and _masculinity_ flooded Nihlus’ nose and almost overpowered him. Saren smelled like the best damn lay ever and he’d never thought of the older man as sexy before this moment. Without thinking, Nihlus moved his head closer to his mentor’s throat and that spot just behind the mandible where pheromones always seemed the strongest.  
  
 _Oh. Oh my. He smells absolutely delicious. I could…I want to…_  
  
Nihlus was just about to stick his tongue out and give a long, very in-depth taste to one of those bites when he was startled by a new voice behind him.  
  
“He’s a little young for you, isn’t he Saren?”  
  
Nihlus fairly jumped out of his plates and backed quickly away from his mentor. _Spirits! I was about to lick him! What the fuck is wrong with me?!_  
  
Saren held his eyes for a moment and then glanced over his shoulder to his lover. “He’s a fair bit older than he looks,” He said, his tone a little condescending. “And he’s my protégé Cicero. Utterly outside my interest.”  
  
The words should not have stung as much as they did. Nihlus had to make the conscious effort to clamp down on his severely embarrassed subharmonics. “I’m, uh, I’ll be back…back later.”  
He turned on his heel and hurried past Cicero without looking at him. _Holy fuck._  
  
When he finally made it back to Saren’s ship hours later, he was far more drunk than he had ever been, completely unable to walk steady or think clearly. If he had been sober, Nihlus wouldn’t have hacked into the security system and watched exactly how Saren had gotten all the scratches and bites. He woke the next morning with an awful hangover and vague images of his mentor in his mind that he couldn’t get rid of no matter how hard he tried.  
  
But then the next time Saren brought a lover onto the ship, Nihlus hacked the security feeds again and watched his mentor fuck another man in real time. And again the next time and the time after that and then _every time_ Saren brought ‘home’ a new bedmate. Nihlus felt awful about it, he felt dirty but he couldn’t make himself stop doing it. A year into his training and Nihlus had learned that Saren had a lover waiting for him at nearly every port they docked.  
  
Cicero on Illium, Gavorn on Omega, a cop named Kuril the few times they made it to Palaven, an executive on Noveria (whose name he’d never learned) plus more than a few of those ERC guards and one of the Spectre requisitions guys whenever they visited the Citadel. Nihlus even sort of thought there was something between his mentor and the turian Councilor because of the way they looked at each other. Then he realized they just enjoyed pissing each other off and that was what all the heated looks were about. And _that_ was a lot less disturbing, thank the spirits.  
  
Saren never lacked for company and he didn’t seem to give a fuck that Nihlus knew. He spent more and more time going solo with his hand wondering just how good of a fuck his mentor actually was. He’d even gone so far as to ask one of the men as they’d left. Nihlus had been punched so hard his mandible had remained locked against his jaw for days.

In the year he’d watched (ahem, spied on) Saren, he’d actually learned several things about the man. The sex stuff Nihlus had more or less figured out on his own based on Saren’s alpha male personality. He liked his lovers’ vocal but he was utterly silent. He never fully undressed for sex, he was always the one on top and the other men were never allowed to stay the night. Saren always slept alone, curled on his side with his hand resting on the butt of a gun. Nihlus knew it was a soldier’s paranoia but at the same time it told him something he knew his mentor would never admit to; Saren didn’t even feel safe on his own ship. In light of Nihlus’ voyeurism, he could understand why.  
  
What Nihlus didn’t understand was why he felt worse watching when Saren was alone than with another person. He’d never considered anything to be more intimate, more inherently private than sex and then he’d seen his mentor alone on a bad night. He’d heard muffled noises coming from Saren’s room through the wall even though they were in the middle of space. Nihlus had tapped into the feed wondering, hoping he’d get to see his mentor in a solitary session for once. Instead, he saw Saren in the throes of a nightmare. Nihlus had immediately cut the connection because _that_ was immensely personal and none of his business. He didn’t learn until later that it had been the anniversary of his brother’s, Desolas, death. Nihlus stopped spying on Saren’s _alone time_ after that, there were just some things about his mentor he didn’t have the right to know. Saren deserved his secrets.

+_-_-_-_-_+

Some things weren’t meant to be trifled with, like the tenuous and unbalanced relationship Nihlus had with his mentor. There were days he could ask Saren’s input on various topics from which of his gun mods were more effective all the way to which held more flavor- raw or cooked meat and back to if he preferred blue over green. Then there were other days that if he so much as opened his mouth to speak the older man would bare his teeth in a threatening manner. So he never made a pass at Saren for fear of his safety and that was after he’d made the mistake of questioning one of the man’s lovers. For what was obviously a very casual arrangement for all involved, the other men were still fiercely loyal to Saren.  
  
It would have surprised him had he not seen the man’s amazing ability to manipulate anyone he wanted; even when that other person wanted to put a round in his head. Saren could spin the greatest tales, twist the truth until facts looked like lies, turn up into down and make night seem like day and he did it in such a way that you thought it was _your_ idea. Saren was an artist when it came to deceiving people and Nihlus never knew what was going on in his head. Frankly, he wasn’t sure he could handle it if he did. The man only let you see what he wanted you to.  
  
That being said, the more he thought about it, Nihlus realized there was every chance Saren knew he was being spied on. And that sent his brain into a tailspin of confusion because if the Spectre knew, why didn’t he put a stop to it? Why hadn’t Saren confronted him (most likely with violence) or threatened him with expulsion from the Spectre training or at the very least changed the damn pass codes? He didn’t strike Nihlus as an exhibitionist, not in that way. Considering how secretive and closed-off Saren was with everything else, letting himself be watched while he was vulnerable like that…no, just no. It didn’t fit with the man that slept with one gun in his hand and another beneath his pillow.  
  
So Saren had to know what Nihlus was doing on those nights when there were three people on the ship. Of course that would mean that he liked being watched. That he liked _Nihlus_ watching him and if that was the case, well, if Saren would just say something, then Nihlus would happily do more than just watch. He’d do so much more if given half the chance. He’d never speculated about sleeping with another man before, at least he’d never given it more than a passing thought, but there was something about Saren that made his heart pound with lust. If watching him through the security feeds was the only way Nihlus could satisfy that strange new want then he knew he’d have to be fine with it.  
  
Nihlus never got the courage to pursue another man. The opportunity had presented itself more than once but every time he’d found the nerve to approach someone, a few minutes of conversation would leave him uninterested. It was always the same thing; none of them affected him in the ways Saren did. There was never an ounce of attraction on his part and during the few instances he’d allowed himself to be touched or caressed, he wouldn’t feel anything but discomfort. No heat, no stirring in his blood, his heart-rate wouldn’t change and his breathing stayed even. For his own sanity Nihlus never let the men touch him for long, knowing they wouldn’t scent his arousal because there was none and knowing the tenseness of his muscles would be felt. He’d tried sleeping with women of his own kind but after one instance when he was unable to silence a displeased subharmonic after the act had ended in a surprisingly violent confrontation, he’d stayed away from other turians altogether. His sense of self-preservation demanded it.

He didn’t stop having sex, oh no, a turian had his needs but he did develop a taste for asari as a species that couldn’t hear those distantly disappointed subharmonics. More so as of late when he couldn’t _look_ at Saren without seeing the latest recorded exploit or wondering just how gratifying it was. He’d slept with more asari than he could count now, trying to expel his mentor’s face from his mind every time he lay with one of them. While Nihlus missed the harsh angles and leathery hide and the talons that regularly dug into him depending on how excited his partner got, he tended to have more fun with the blue beauties even though he was never quite as satisfied as with his own kind.  
  
And that was another thing Nihlus enjoyed about asari; they were blue. A stupid reason until Nihlus gave it some deeper thought and it turned simply peculiar. The blue of asari flesh was nearly the same color as turian blood. It had taken Nihlus forever to figure out why something so shocking in its oddness turned him on so much. It reminded him of that single drop of blood sliding down Saren’s pale plates the first time Nihlus had seen him half-dressed and covered in the trophies of rough sex. That first time he’d realized he wanted to hold Saren down and-  
  
Fuck! There were so many things Nihlus wanted to do to him. So _very many_ things; his plates loosened and shifted at the thoughts that swarmed him. It took conscious effort to make them close again.  
  
Nihlus knew he needed to shake the thoughts off and get his mind clear before tomorrow. He had finally proven himself in the eyes of the council and earned his place as a Spectre. It was why he’d spent the last several hours cleaning and polishing his armor, checking his weapons, fucking around on his omnitool and then repeating the process over and over again. He was more nervous than he’d ever been before. Saren wasn’t just an immensely difficult man to please, he was an _impossible_ man to please and he’d found Nihlus worthy…It was a lot of pressure and he would rather die than ever disappoint his mentor.

+_-_-_-_-_+

The induction into the elite Spectres was a surprisingly tame and private affair that reminded Nihlus of being back in school and getting the day’s homework assignment. In fact, it was exactly like that… except for the part where he was armed and had a _serious_ crush on his teacher. It was difficult to focus on what was being said with Saren was standing next to him in the white and black accented armor of the Cabals that had been polished until it gleamed in the artificial light streaming through the windows. The black hood that was designed to protect the bio amp at the base of his skull hid his long fringe and was tucked neatly behind his mandibles and those unusual cheekspines of his. The tails of the hood framed his neck and seemed to emphasize every line and tendon before disappearing beneath the inside of his collar. It was hard to keep his eyes forward and to stop them from drifting sideways. But Nihlus had never seen him looking so handsome (because spying on him when he was naked didn’t count) with his hands clasped respectfully behind his back even while he and Sparatus traded glares whenever Councilor Tevos wasn’t looking at them. The man was even shower fresh, still smelling of that smoky and spicy but still vaguely sweet soap he used that made Nihlus’ mouth water uncontrollably at the thought of discovering if the taste of his flesh matched his scent.  
  
He often got a sense of the regal from Saren. Nihlus wasn’t sure whether it was his meticulous appearance, his stance and the set of his broad shoulders or the air of sophistication that surrounded him even when he was covered in blood and stinking of eezo. All those things together made the older man sexy as hell, especially with the feeling of utter confidence and surety that radiated outward and drew others back in like a singularity. Standing next to Saren, every ounce of Nihlus’ trepidation bled away to leave him just as straight-backed and self-assured as his mentor. Saren would never say it, but Nihlus knew the man was proud of him.  
  
Councilor Sparatus met his gaze across the room as he spoke of the burden of his responsibility to all civilized peoples across the galaxy. The older man inclined his head once in silent acknowledgement before turning his attention back to Saren, his eyes narrowing the slightest bit. Nihlus had to swallow the sigh that wanted out.  
  
 _Yep. Not even two minutes can pass before they’re trying to kill each other with their eyes again. Fucking hell. It’s a wonder they aren’t constantly locked in combat… Huh. No sense wondering who would win, the better question is who would be the more ruthless._  
  
Nihlus chanced a sideways glance at his mentor and found that Saren had one mandible slanted outward in a ‘come and get it’ grin as he stared at the councilor.  
  
 _And that answers that._

When all was said and done, and he had spoken to each of the councilors individually (Saren had of course hung back while he talked to Sparatus. What the fuck was their issue anyway?) Nihlus found himself feeling mentally drained. Stick him among soldiers and blood and gunfire any day because this political-make-nice shit was exhausting. It probably didn’t help that he’d been awake most of the night spying on his mentor again while he’d fucked his own hand.  
  
He followed Saren out of the Council Chambers and through the Presidium to the elevator. Nihlus leaned against the wall and sighed with content as he rolled his shoulders to stretch out the muscles that had tensed as he’d stood at perfect attention for so long. Saren leaned one shoulder against the opposite wall, omnitool up and running as he typed a quick message to someone.  
  
 _Probably arranging to meet one of his lovers back at the ship. Wonder who it’ll be this time? That guy down in requisitions maybe? He likes putting the C-Sec guys in their place…Though I guess he could just be buying supplies._  
  
The orange glow of Saren’s ‘tool disappeared and Nihlus saw him smirk before his face settled into its usual expressionlessness.  
  
 _Nope, definitely meeting with someone to fuck. All night. Again._ Nihlus swallowed hard as the flesh of his throat started to get hot. _Damn it. Saren why can’t you just-_  
  
He slammed the door on that particular thought, or rather, he tried to, but his libido flooded his brain with images and ideas. Nihlus developed the sudden urge to reach out and slam Saren into the metal of the elevator’s wall. To shove his hand down the front of the man’s armor and into his pants, to feel around for the tender groin plates and rub his fingers along the seam in the middle until Saren opened for him with a rush of wet heat…  
  
The compulsion was fierce and maddening. He clenched his hands into fists and trapped them between his back and the wall to keep from acting on his desires. If Saren noticed his dilemma or the spiced smell of his arousal then he gave no sign of it. A spirits-damned lifetime, an _asari’s_ lifetime passed in silence before the elevator opened up on the docking bay. Saren’s shoulder bumped his as they stepped out and Nihlus knew it had been intentional.  
  
“What?” He asked, working to keep the huskiness of lust out of all his tones.

“You’ve options ahead of you now.” The older man said, looking at him askance while deftly stepping around a hanar blocking his way.  
  
Nihlus resisted the temptation to tell Saren that he’d always had options, but few of them had ever been as purposeful. “Oh?”  
  
“You could acquire a ship and go your own way.”  
  
He could certainly see the appeal of having his own ship. Something fast and sleek and of turian design obviously. He didn’t have a preference as far as manufactures went.  
  
“Or,” Saren continued, his primary tone ambiguous as if whatever decision was made mattered little to him. “You could continue to travel with me as a fellow Spectre rather than my student.”  
  
Nihlus nearly tripped over his own feet. He’d never given thought to Saren extending such an offer, certain the other man would jump at the chance to have his ship all to himself again.  
  
“Seriously?” At least he didn’t sputter.  
  
Saren gave him a look like he wanted to say ‘duh’ or something of equal measure but knew the phrase was beneath him. Nihlus wondered what the man would do if he tried to hug him and quickly decided that it wasn’t worth the probable pain of finding out.  
  
“I…of course!” He couldn’t keep the awed excitement out of his voice though. “I’d be honored Saren.”  
  
The older man just nodded, he’d obviously known Nihlus would agree and asking had only been a formality. “Good. We’ll be on the Citadel for the next two days but nonetheless we’ll need more supplies, and the sooner that’s done the better. I’ll transfer the credits to your account; get all you think we’ll need to get us through the month. We’re heading out to the Verge when our leave is over so don’t skimp on the necessities.”  
  
“Is there anything in particular you want?” Nihlus asked him. Saren wasn’t a picky eater and didn’t have many hobbies that he knew about but he still thought he should offer to get him something for entertainment. “Maybe something to read?”  
  
“No. Although I’d appreciate if you’d gather the items now.”  
  
“You’ve got plans,” He didn’t phrase it like a question because Saren knew what he was asking.  
  
“Yes, I do.”  
  
Nihlus knew he shouldn’t ask his next thought, it was another of those things that really wasn’t any of his business but he did anyway. He just hoped his harmonics didn’t sound accusatory, like he was nonverbally calling Saren a whore or something worse because he wasn’t. “Who is it this time?”  
  
“No one you know.”  
  
His mandibles flickered before his could pull them against his jaw, again Saren gave no sign that he’d noticed. Nihlus didn’t know why his mentor meeting someone new suddenly upset him so much but it did and the anger was like a heavy ball of ick deep in his stomach.  
  
“Oh um, well do I have enough time to swing by and change into something more comfortable?”  
  
It was half an excuse to get a look at this new lover, which Saren had to know, and half Nihlus actually wanting to change out of his armor and into some real clothing.  
  
“Just be quick,” Saren said with disinterest.

+_-_-_-_-_+  
  
Nihlus took his time removing the sections of his armor and storing them neatly in the locker under his bed. He wasn’t leaving until he knew what Saren’s new lover looked like, he couldn’t explain why he needed to know, even to himself, but he knew he had to. He’d already put through his hack to the camera in Saren’s room and its position in the upper north corner gave him a complete view. The sound only worked forty percent of the time, and only if it wanted it to, so he wouldn’t know what they said to each other and would have to rely on body language alone. It was Saren’s body he was interested in anyway and it wasn’t like he really wanted to watch the man he desired fuck someone else. But he knew he was going to because he couldn’t make himself stop watching. He had just started buckling the clasps of his shirt when he caught movement on the screen that didn’t belong to the Spectre. Leaving the last couple of fasteners undone, Nihlus sat before his terminal and settled in to watch.  
  
Even through the camera, he could see that Saren’s new lover was his physical equal in the width of his chest and shoulders, his trim waist and long legs. He was significantly taller than Saren though by at least a head. His plates almost seemed golden, a serious offset to the distinct skull-like pattern of blue markings all over his face and fringe. …But he was still quite the looker. Nihlus shifted in his seat until he was more comfortable. Watching Saren take control of someone bigger than him was going to be entertaining as well as hot.  
  
So he was completely shocked when the other man grabbed Saren’ fringe and wrenched his head back and went immediately for his throat. Even more shocking was that Saren didn’t shove him away, that he just angled his head farther back so the other man could have more access. Nihlus stared at the screen, his mouth hanging open with the surprise of seeing something he’d never thought to. It only lasted a few moments before Saren did push him away, which was when the impossible happened.  
  
The other man grabbed Saren’s waist, overpowering him in the span of seconds and then shoved him into the wall hard enough for Nihlus to hear and held him there. On the screen, Saren seemed just as surprised as he was and the look on his face shifted between enjoyment and revulsion. Nihlus knew his mentor didn’t like to submit in any way and letting this- this skull-faced _fucker_ pin him was certainly a submission. He saw Saren’s mouth move but couldn’t hear the words, registered that the other man ignored him before going for his throat again.  
  
Nihlus swallowed as his heart started to beat faster and harder behind his ribs, conflicted with what he was witnessing, unsure if Saren was consenting or just waiting for the opportunity to turns the tables. His plates gave a slight shift. Which was about the time Saren started to touch the other man in turn, working a hand between their bodies and Nihlus saw him buck into that touch. His mentor’s mouth moved again and he couldn’t even speculate on what was being said because what’s going on was already so far outside the normal ebb and flow of Saren’s encounters. Nihlus couldn’t help but wonder just who-the-fuck this guy was because Saren was allowing him a lot of leeway.

The other man left the Spectre’s throat then and it looked like he licked over Saren’s mouth but didn’t kiss him, they almost never kissed him, before taking a step back. His smile made Nihlus’ stomach feel sick for a multitude of reasons, the foremost being that it was a cruel smile. He knew Saren liked things with a roughness that bordered just shy of abusive; he maybe even preferred it that way, but there was something wrong with what he was seeing. His mentor was _always_ the one in control and that never changed. However there was something off about this new lover, Nihlus could feel it. He must have blinked because there was another thump, louder and harder than the first, and on the screen the man had forced Saren into a position of being pinned face first to the wall with one arm twisted behind his back.  
  
He was out of his seat at the same time the skull-tatted man was thrown across the room in a flash of blue that lingered all over Saren as he quickly turned back around. Nihlus didn’t need the sound to know what was going on, the set of his mentor’s shoulders and the visible biotic energy told him all he needed to know. The other man didn’t seem to argue, at least his stance didn’t become aggressive but when Saren suddenly flared blue again, he turned and all but ran out of the room.  
  
The blue died away as Saren fell back against the wall and that was about the time Nihlus realized he was standing. That he had his hand wrapped around the butt of his pistol and halfway out of its holster.

Nihlus felt like he was an engine that had stalled as he stood there staring at the screen with his hand so tight on his gun that his knuckles were hurting. Saren looked…drained almost and he wondered what-in-the-fuck he’d just witnessed and what he should do about it. He knew he couldn’t just barge in on Saren. Not only was that stupid at the best of times, but right now with the way he felt, it was insane.  
  
What the hell could he even say? That was the real question. _Hey Saren I was spying on you ‘cause I like to watch you fuck other men and I saw that guy try to hurt you…_ Yeah, no. Saren would feed him his liver. For starters as a first course. _I had an off feeling so I loitered around and hacked the security to make sure you were safe…_ That was even worse, his mentor would not appreciate the concern or the implication that he couldn’t take care of himself. Nihlus supposed he could always try a joke but the best thing he had was mostly insulting. _What gives Saren? You’re usually busy with them all night. Starting to feel your age?_ Maybe if he wanted Saren to gut him, sure, that could work.  
  
A glance at his monitor showed him that Saren was still standing with his back to the wall, his eyes closed. Nihlus couldn’t tell if he was really shaken up or trying to get himself under control with a little meditation. He couldn’t keep standing there staring at the screen though, he really couldn’t. Nihlus could- to borrow a human phrase- just wing it, just go knock on Saren’s door and let instinct guide him. It wasn’t like he had any better ideas. He paused, still looking at his screen and the image of Saren leaning against the wall with an expression on his face that he couldn’t decipher but was wrong all the same.  
  
But at Saren’s door seconds later, he hesitated, his brain going blank and his nerve abandoning him. His mentor could have any number of reactions to his visit, ranging from complete indifference all the way to sheer ferocity. For the life of him, Nihlus couldn’t figure out which of the many options was the most likely, what he’d just witnessed was something he’d never imagined he would. Not to anyone but especially not to Saren.  
  
 _Nothing actually happened,_ He told himself firmly. _And nothing would have happened, despite how it looked, Saren had it under control. He always has things under his control. Fuck, for a minute there it looked like he was even having fun. That fucker just pushed too fast, took too many liberties with Saren’s allowance._  
  
Still Nihlus hesitated for a handful of seconds. _Oh for fuck’s sake, I’m a Spectre now. I can knock on his fucking door instead of standing here with my fist raised like an damn idiot._  
  
Then, like the Spirits had it out for him, Saren’s door slid open and the man himself nearly collided with Nihlus. He stopped less than a foot away; one hand held a blue stained cloth against his neck and the left side of his shirt was torn open from his ribs down exposing a strip of grey flesh. Nihlus looked away.  
  
“I thought you’d left already.” Both Saren’s primary and secondary tones were oddly flat. “What do you want Nihlus?”  
  
“I, um,” Nihlus couldn’t meet Saren’s eyes, he didn’t want to see what emotions- if any- were swimming around those pools of silvers. He looked anywhere but the man’s eyes; at the pale throat that was already bruising, down to Saren’s chest and that streak of bare waist, then onto the hips he wanted so much to grab before his gaze finally hit the floor.  
  
Everything he’d thought about saying and then dismissed as stupid or hurtful, squished together on his tongue and fell out of his mouth in a single breath. “I hacked into the feed ‘cause I had a weird feeling and you normally keep them busy all night even though you’re old but then I saw that guy try to hurt you and I just needed to make sure you were ok.”  
  
He saw Saren go rigid and his own muscles tightened as fear crept through his blood to land heavily somewhere near his heart. _Oh fuck._

Saren was the best Spectre in the galaxy for several reasons and one of them was his unpredictability. His only fault was that his anger took hold of him easily and quickly. Nihlus knew these things and had even expected them, but Saren’s hand suddenly grabbing him by the neck still startled a yelp out of him. He was slammed against the wall so hard his mouth snapped shut and he nearly bit the end of his tongue off. Saren squeezed his throat tight enough to make spots form at the edges of his vision, it only lasted a second and then his grip loosened but he didn’t let go of Nihlus.  
  
“I neither want, nor do I need your concern.” Saren told him in that low tone he used when he was at the end of his patience, a harmonic blend of threat, fury and a coldness that frightened Nihlus all the way to his core.  
  
He tightened his hold again and it wasn’t brief, Nihlus grabbed his wrists with both hands and scrambled to get free. “I’m sorry!” He said as loudly as he could but it still came out as a croak.  
  
Saren let him drop back to his feet and Nihlus did meet his eyes this time. He didn’t have a word for what he saw in them, a turbulent emotion for sure, but he couldn’t name it. He tried to say he was sorry again, tried to tell Saren that he would stop spying but the Spectre silenced him with a small gesture of his mandibles.  
  
“I told you to restock the ship,” His tone was still cold enough to make Nihlus shiver. “I want that done by the time I get back.”  
  
He nodded silently, frantically, and Saren turned on his heel and left. Nihlus’ knees gave way and he fell to his ass there in the hall, his back against his mentor’s door. His heart started to beat again, his blood thundered in his ears and his mandibles fluttered against his face as the adrenaline left him. Anyone else, anyone other than Saren and he knew he wouldn’t have been as affected but the pale-plated turian could break him without even trying.  
  
 _I didn’t… I wasn’t trying to… I just don’t want him to hurt._ It took a lot of conscious effort to stop the shaking of his hands and knees and even more to get back to his feet. _Deep breaths Nihlus, just…deep breaths._ He shifted his footing and noticed something that made him growl with something akin to despair. Saren slamming him into the wall was…fuck, he was so turned on. He hadn’t descended yet but his plates were fully open and his groin was unbearably hot with blood-flow. Nihlus dug his talons into his palms until it hurt. Of all the things about Saren that turned him on, it was his violence that had left him completely breathless.  
  
 _Spirits, what the fuck is wrong with me?_

It took a little more than an hour to restock Saren’s ship, once he was done and had arranged for everything to be delivered within the next day, the last place Nihlus wanted to go was home. And Saren’s ship was more a home to him than any other place he’d been in his life but he couldn’t face his mentor, not for a little bit longer. Thankfully the Citadel was a huge place, one that if he wanted to, he could easily lose himself in. As Saren had apparently done.  
  
Nihlus wandered for hours; doing everything he could to keep his mind off that turian with the skull-like tats. To keep from seeing the bite on Saren’s throat that had been far, far too close to the special spot no one but a beloved mate was supposed to bite. It was no wonder he’d been so pissed and definitely not a surprise that he’d acted so viciously knowing that someone else had witnessed his moment of weakness and-  
He was supposed to be clearing his head, not dwelling on all the emotions Saren made him feel at any given moment. A distraction was needed, something to relieve his stress and help get his mind on more pleasant things. Any other time he’d take a page from Saren’s book and go in search of a good fuck but right now Nihlus wanted sex even less than he wanted to go home. It left him with few options and getting drunk wasn’t a good idea.  
  
If he got drunk, his conscience would be kept quiet and he’d spend the remainder of his shore leave searching for Saren’s almost-lover with the sole purpose of wrapping his hands around the man’s throat. Or putting a gun to his head, or maybe getting him somewhere private and unnoticed so he could take his time with the punishment that fucker deserved for even trying to…do what he’d attempted to do to Saren.  
  
Nihlus was supposed to be looking for a worthwhile distraction, not planning an extremely satisfying and bloody murder. _Shit, this is the Citadel, there has to be something to do._ He had friends on the station, though most of them were the friends he slept with from time to time and a scant few were the actual kind of friend he just liked to be around.  
  
“Fuck it,” Nihlus muttered to himself, stopping momentarily to open his omnitool and call one such friend.  
  
Rivale didn’t keep him waiting long, in fact she never did. “Hey there _Spectre_ , how goes it?”  
  
“Can I come see you? Please?” He asked, getting straight to the point. “I don’t want sex, I just really don’t want to be alone right now.”  
  
“I’m guessing Saren inadvertently did something.” It was a testament to their friendship that she knew what was bothering him by just talking to him.  
  
“It wasn’t inadvertent this time.”  
  
“Oh. Ok, yeah, just come to my apartment Nihlus.”  
  
He was going to hug her when he got there. “Thank you darling.”

+_-_-_-_-_+

Rivale met him at the door and pulled him into a tight embrace before she’d even said hello and Nihlus buried his face in her shoulder. He had to stoop a little bit, the former commando only stood as tall as the middle of his chest and the base of his throat when she wore heels. For a few breaths he just held her; he’d forgotten how good a simple hug could feel.  
  
 _Fuck I’d give anything to hold Saren like this. Just once, just for a few seconds…_ At the thought Nihlus tightened his arms around her and pushed his face a little more firmly against her warm skin. His gratefulness was nearly tangible and certainly audible when she squeezed him back.  
  
“It’s good to see you again.” She said when he released her.  
  
“Yeah, you too.” And it was; months had passed since he’d last been on the Citadel.  
  
She was shapely for an asari, with more feminine curves than he really knew what to do with but she fit into his hands like she was made for them. Nihlus had always found the asari to be beautiful but somehow Rivale managed to stand out with her sapphire skin and pale lilac eyes, her full lips and the radiant smile they formed when he made her laugh.  
  
Rivale had always been able to read him like he was an unprotected omnitool, completely free of passwords and firewalls. “You ok Nihlus?”  
  
Just like when he’d spoken to Saren, the words tumbled out of his mouth. How ecstatic he was at earning his mentor’s approval, how _right_ it had felt to stand next to Saren as an equal and how much he was looking forward to that change in their relationship. Then he told Rivale about what had happened back on the ship and the man that had tried to force his mentor’s surrender in the physical and sexual sense. He told her that Saren had sent the man running, the proverbial tail tucked between his legs with unbelievable ease. But how, for just a moment it had looked to Nihlus like his fellow Spectre had started to enjoy being, well, on the receiving end for lack of a better term.  
  
He did not tell Rivale how much he would like to be the person giving Saren that particular type of pleasure. He’d thought about it a number of times and on the nights when they were stuck in FLT, he had imagined it in great detail. Nihlus had certainly watched Saren preform the act enough times to know how it would work. And he didn’t dare to tell her that on more than one occasion he’d fantasized about doing exactly what that man had tried to do. Not without Saren’s explicit and crystal-clear consent, never without that. But spirits damn him, it was Nihlus’ favorite fantasy.  
  
“So no, Rivale, I don’t think I’m ok. I think I’m damned.”  
  
She made a _pfft_ noise. “Like you’re the first to ever spy on someone else fucking. It’s called ‘porn’ dear, maybe you’ve heard of it.”  
  
Her tone had him laughing despite himself now that things were in a clearer perspective. His discomfort at spying on Saren and the man’s many lovers suddenly seemed a lot less wrong even though it still left his insides feeling tight and oily.  
  
“Now that you’ve got all that off your chest,” She said. “Do you want a drink?”  
  
Nihlus shook his head and resettled himself on her couch. “If I drink Rivale, I am going to go find that son-of-a-whore and rip him apart plate by plate.”  
  
“Such violence,” She deadpanned, and then in a more joyful tone; “At least do it right and work your way up from the bottom. Y’know, so you have more time while you skin his ass.”  
  
He laughed again, harder this time and with an edge of desperation that made his mandibles vibrate. Rivale thankfully didn’t comment on his obvious anxiety. She retrieved a bottle of something green from her kitchen and then plopped down on the couch, slinging her legs over his thighs as she got comfy.  
  
“Nihlus… Has it occurred to you that Saren might know you’re watching him?” She asked.

He sighed deeply and absently ran one talon down her leg, admiring the graceful sweep of muscles beneath her skin. “If he does know then why hasn’t he confronted me? Or changed his security, or ripped out the camera? Why hasn’t he beaten the hell out of me? Or-or-“  
  
“Fucked you?” She asked but with a tone that was more suited to asking someone to pass a utensil.  
  
“Yes!” Her legs fell from his lap as Nihlus exploded to his feet and began to pace quickly, turning on his heel at the end of each pass of the couch. “Why hasn’t he fucked me yet? Spirits Rivale, he has to know how much I want him. And I’m sure he knows why Kuril almost broke my mandible…”  
  
Nihlus gave a frustrated growl and ran his palms over his fringe repeatedly as his motions steadily got more erratic. “You know what darling? I will have that drink but you can’t let me leave here tonight.”  
  
“Sure thing Spectre!” Rivale hopped up excitedly and Nihlus couldn’t help but feel like getting him to drink had been her goal since he’d walked in. She was manipulative like that but he knew she was trying to help him calm down if not relax. “No, sit your ass down, I’ll get it.”  
  
But Nihlus did as she’d said and allowed himself to collapse onto the sofa, his head falling back to rest against the cushions momentarily.  
  
“So any clue where he disappeared to?” She called from the kitchen.  
  
“No.” He said bitterly, sitting up and leaning forward with his palms on his knees and squeezing. “This is Saren we’re talking about. He could conceivably be doing anything from getting a meal to finding someone else to fuck!”  
  
“You’re really upset about this.” She said without emotion but the cabinet she kept her dextro liquor in shut with unnecessary force.  
  
He sighed as he felt all the anger and hurt suddenly drain from him to be replaced with an empty sort of tiredness. He slumped in his seat and choked down a noise of sadness, Rivale wouldn’t have been able to hear it but the principle remained; he couldn’t afford to be weak.  
  
“You didn’t see him Rivale or the look in his eyes. I think…” It was impossible but the notion had refused to leave him. “I think he was actually frightened.”  
  
Rivale opened the freezer and Nihlus heard the pieces of ice thunk as it hit the bottom of two glasses and the splash of liquid as it was poured. “From what you’ve told me and what I’ve seen when we melded, your Saren doesn’t feel fear.”  
  
“He’s not mine.” Unsaid, at least outside the hearing range of anyone but another turian: _No matter how much I want to change that and make him my own._  
  
Rivale came out of the kitchen with a glass in each hand; one filled with something sparkling and lightly colored while the other was dark and fizzing. “But you want him to be.”  
  
“…I think I’m…I think maybe I feel more than lust for Saren. But I don’t know, I’m not sure what I’m feeling. And what if…what if I finally get my hands on him and I don’t feel _anything_? What then Rivale? What do I do then?”  
  
She handed him the glass full of the dark stuff, her fingers grazing his as she let go. “You pick up the pieces of your heart Nihlus and you keep going.”  
  
+_-_-_-_-_+  
  
He met Saren outside the ship the next morning, his head throbbing with the mother of all hangovers. His body was sore and aching from where he’d fallen asleep hanging half off Rivale’s couch with his head in her lap while she had been twisted around him. Saren was his usual calm and unmoved self in casual wear that was only a few shades darker than his plates and skin. He didn’t look quite as good as he had the day before in the Council Chambers but in the privacy of his head, Nihlus thought he looked delectable.  
  
Saren greeted him with a short nod and a hardness to his eyes that made it immediately clear that he didn’t want to talk about what Nihlus had witnessed the night before. Nihlus indicated his understanding with an outward flick of one mandible.  
  
“What are your plans for today?” Saren asked him as they waited for the airlock to cycle through.  
  
For a split second Nihlus thought the Spectre was asking him out on a date before he realized just how senseless that was.  
  
“I don’t have any.”  
  
“Excellent. We’re leaving early.”  
  
“We are?” Nihlus asked.  
  
“There’s a faction of the Blue Suns out in the Kepler Verge, they’re under the impression they’re well hidden within the asteroid belt but their back and forth trade activity was noticed and has since been monitored. One of their buyers was arrested the night before last. Her omnitool carried a large amount of information regarding slave and weapons trade coming to and _leaving_ Citadel space. As this is far above the skillset of C-Sec, our services were requested by the Council to go in and ah, clean house.”  
  
“Sounds fun.” He said. “When do we leave?”  
  
Saren passed him and headed toward the cockpit, getting behind the controls and setting their destination. He started the ship’s autopilot and then passed Nihlus again on the way to his room.  
  
“Within the hour,” He called back over his shoulder. “I trust you have everything you need.”  
  
He didn’t get a chance to answer before Saren’s door slid shut.  
  
+_-_-_-_-_+  
  
A day and a half past the Mass Relay and Nihlus’ dislike for extended periods of FTL travel neared an unbearable level. He had never handled these types of trips well and even less so when there was nothing to occupy his mind. Or his body for that matter, but thinking about his body always started him down the path of thinking about Saren’s.  
  
The bite that had been on his neck was healed now, obviously due to medigel, although the skin around it was still bruised. He seemed a lot less tense too, sitting in the pilot’s chair, his feet actually propped up on the dash as he stared out the view port at the black space of the galaxy. Whatever Saren had done after leaving Nihlus had left him relaxed and approachable. Case in point, he’d been quietly sitting next to the man for the last hour with his chair angled just enough so that his feet rested alongside Saren’s. If Nihlus were to shift, they’d be touching. He had to struggle not to fidget for that exact purpose. But his mind roamed and he found himself wondering what Saren would do if he suddenly climbed into the man’s lap and kissed him senseless. He shook the thought away.  
  
Looking at Saren out the corner of his eye, Nihlus realized they had never done anything like this in the year they’d lived together on his too small ship. Sitting in a companionable silence and staring out at the stars. He realized something else too, aside from spying on Saren like he had been, he knew so very little about the man.  
  
He knew a lot about Saren the Spectre. He was ruthless, single-minded, thorough, scary intelligent and so many other things that made him a very dangerous enemy to have. But Saren the man? Nihlus knew next to nothing and what he did know, he really shouldn’t.  
  
“So…” He said, letting the word trail off.  
  
“What Nihlus?”  
  
“I’m not your student anymore.”  
  
Saren hummed, uncrossed and then re-crossed his feet with the opposite foot on top. “I’m aware of that.”  
  
“That means I’m not your subordinate anymore either.” Nihlus shifted in his chair, turning so that he could watch the man’s every move, to look for the little clues to his mood.  
  
His mandibles twitched slightly, Nihlus wasn’t sure what that meant. “Yes, that’s exactly what it means.” He said. “What are you after Nihlus?”

 _Your cock, any way I can get it._ He thought and quickly dismissed it before he gave himself away. “I don’t know anything about you. Can I…ask you some things?”  
  
“I won’t answer what I don’t want to.” Saren told him with a dry and vaguely annoyed tone.  
  
“I don’t expect you to.” Nihlus said in return. “I hadn’t been born yet when the Relay 314 incident happened, but I’ve heard about it indirectly.”  
  
Saren looked at him, his head the only thing that moved. “You want to know what it was like to encounter humans for the first time.”  
  
“No, I don’t care about that.” He shifted again in his seat, turning to put one leg in the chair while he propped his elbows on the armrest. “I want to know about the Valluvian Priests that returned at the end of the war…with your brother.”  
  
Saren’s eyes seemed to go…dead almost but certainly empty as he turned away. Nihlus saw his mandibles draw up tight to the line of his jaw. Nihlus was about to tell him that he didn’t need to know, not if it was something Saren didn’t want to talk about, when the man spoke.  
  
"They weren’t real priests, there was a…wrongness with them, a taint of darkness.” He had clamped down on his subharmonics and the primary tone of his voice so tightly, that it was apparent he was hiding his emotions. “Somehow Desolas became…disillusioned to their true nature and he…lost his way. What happened…had to be done.”  
  
“Oh.”  
  
What in the hell could he say to that? It wasn’t what he’d been taught in school or had heard from his father’s mercs. That Temple Palaven had been conquered by a Separatist group, the priests taken hostage and General Arterius had called down an orbital strike after a threat of bio-weaponry had been made. Nihlus was taught that the General and the Valluvian Priests had sacrificed themselves for the safety of Palaven’s capital city. So soon after their losses at Shanxi, the Hierarchy couldn’t afford to appear weak in the slightest.  
  
“That’s…not what we were taught happened.” Nihlus said at last.  
  
“Of course not.” The other Spectre snorted and his tones were still purposely blank. “It would have been an affront to the turian people to learn that their recently returned and revered holy men were but poor imitations.”  
  
Nihlus let a few minutes pass, watching Saren watch the stars, his face still impassive but for the rigid set of his mandibles. “What, uh, was he like?”  
  
“He was precisely as history states he was. A good turian till the end.”  
  
He accepted Saren’s stiffly spoken non-answer even though it sounded like a lie. General Arterius certainly wasn’t the first turian to martyr himself for the greater good of Palaven and he definitely wouldn’t be the last. But…he was part of Saren and therefore more important.  
  
“I’m sorry for-“  
  
“I’d prefer if you kept your questions outside the realm of my family.” Saren interrupted and now his subharmonics were sharply edged in warning.  
  
“Yeah that’s…yeah.”  
  
He understood loss, having had experienced death firsthand more than once. He’d even been the cause of it a few times, but that didn’t come close to comparing to the death of a family member. He’d been sixteen when one of his father’s men stabbed him in the back, figuratively speaking. Diosis Kryik had been shot execution style by his second, and his mom, well…fuck. Not wanting to talk about family was something Nihlus was very familiar with.  
  
He waited again, watching Saren until he saw the tenseness leave his frame and his mandibles had relaxed back into their natural position. Still, Nihlus gave it a few more minutes before he started to ask more questions.  
  
“You’re the first turian biotic I’ve met.” He began so Saren would know what direction he was heading with his queries, giving the man time to shut him down. “Um, how did you know?”  
  
Saren huffed a laugh but there was no humor in it. ”It’s not something that can be mistaken for an illness. There are few to no explanations when you’re able to toss people and objects around without touching them whenever your mood fluctuates. Every time you’re pissed off or…happy.”  
  
The Spectre seemed to drift into his memories for a moment.  
  
“You were just a kid, weren’t you?” Nihlus asked softly.  
  
Saren inclined his head in the positive. “I hadn’t even reached my fifth name-day.”

“Spirits Saren,” He exclaimed, completely shocked. “That’s so young. Please tell me that you weren’t sent straight to the Cabals.”  
  
He shook his head once. “No, that happened four months later, once my amp was installed.”  
  
Nihlus stared. “How could they do that to you? You were just a child!”  
  
Saren raised one shoulder in an indifferent shrug. “I had a lot of potential. And,” He lifted a hand that was engulfed in a steady flow of thin blue light. “I have a lot of power.”  
  
Nihlus stared, swallowing hard and wondered why he found Saren’s little showing off, something he never did, so sexy. He turned in his seat, crossing his legs in what he hoped was an inconspicuous way. He couldn’t hide the sudden shiver of arousal that shook through him, but thankfully the Spectre wasn’t looking at him.  
  
“I can’t believe you didn’t burn yourself out. “ He said, almost to himself. “Did you know that human biotics are given more than two years to recover from the surgery itself?”  
  
“That’s because they’re a weak species.”  
  
The one thing he couldn’t agree with Saren, was the state of humans in the galaxy. Nihlus couldn’t help but respect any species whose military had given the turians so much trouble. Saren though, just saw them as infantile. But it wasn’t something they talked about; ever.  
  
“What about the Cabals? I’ve heard so many things I don’t know what’s true.”  
  
In a backwards way, everything he’d heard about the Cabals and turian biotics in general, was complementary. Whole legions eradicated in the middle of the night, the surrounding lands scorched and the air itself vibrating with leftover energy, the stink of eezo on everything. Every story he’d ever heard had been told in a way that was meant to terrify like a child’s cautionary tale. Nihlus knew some of the facts, like how the cabal units were used as assassins and shock troops during the Unification Wars. He also knew that most of the cabals demanded the two things no turian wanted to surrender: their colonial markings and their name. It was why Saren was barefaced, he’d been lucky or stubborn enough to keep his family name but not his colors.  
  
“It’s different everywhere, the training was far more strict and all-consuming than what you would have experienced during your traditional stint on the homeworld.”  
  
“But, how though?” Nihlus asked. “How is it different from what everyone else does?”  
  
Saren growled under his breath and his feet fell from the dash as he sat up. Nihlus stiffened and shrank back in his chair to put some distance between them. The Spectre was unpredictable and he didn’t want to be hit if he could prevent it.  
  
“I understand that long travel through space makes you severely anxious, and I can even relate to that.” He said, subtones tight with annoyance. “However I am in no mood to play twenty-questions with you.”  
  
Nihlus smiled at him timidly, aware that the man’s patience was immensely thin and that he had already stretched it to the breaking point. “Ok, ok. I wasn’t trying to annoy you.” He said. “But can I ask you one more thing?”  
  
“One _last_ thing.”  
  
He went through a list in his head of all the things about his mentor that’d he’d ever wanted to know. Why did Saren sleep around so much but had never tried to fuck him? Had he ever made love or was rough sex all he had experience with? Did Saren view them as friends? Hell, did the Spectre even like him as a person or was he just putting up with Nihlus because the Council had ordered him to? And then he got it.  
  
“You _have_ to answer this one for me.” Nihlus insisted, leaning toward Saren as much as he could without falling from his seat.  
  
The Spectre sighed with exasperation, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Fine. I’ll answer this last question for you and you’ll leave me be for the rest of the trip.”  
  
Nihlus nodded eagerly.  
  
“Then ask Nihlus.”  
  
“This has bothered me for a while so… what’s the deal between you and the Councilor?”

Saren physically turned to look at him, one browridge raised just slightly. “That’s your final question? Are you sure?”  
  
Nihlus ran the list of questions through his head again. “Yes, now answer. You and Councilor Sparatus. You’re always glaring at each other and you can barely hold a civil conversation with the man. Why is that?”  
  
Oddly enough, the Spectre glanced away from him, seemingly unable to meet his eyes. Something he’d never had a problem doing before; it was usually Nihlus who had trouble holding that cold stare.  
  
His voice was near a whisper when he spoke. “Take a look at me.”  
  
 _Happily,_ he thought and let his gaze pass over Saren without restriction. Those bright silver eyes drew his attention every time, they were intense and otherworldly, utterly striking in their exoticness. The angular and sharply defined features of his face from the hard but elegant shape of his foreplate and brows that always gave Saren a severe and solemn expression to the large, heavy mandibles that rested against the line of his jaw and extended just beneath his mouth. Nihlus had always thought that his unusually long cheekspines were beautiful in the way they curved just slightly toward the back of his head. Saren’s fringe, almost always covered by the black hood, was longer than most turians Nihlus knew but it wasn’t unattractive. Just the opposite; he had dreams about tracing the length with his fingers and maybe even his tongue too.  
  
He suddenly realized he had to have been staring longer than was polite. “I don’t understand Saren.” He said from a dry throat that was a little too warm.  
  
His mentor sighed, gesturing to his face. “What’s missing?”  
  
“Uh…nothing.”  
  
Saren snorted, looking away again and that was when Nihlus understood what the man was trying to tell him. The Councilor disliked Saren because of his lack of colonial markings.  
  
“But why would that matter?” As far as Nihlus was concerned, Saren’s face didn’t need any color, that uniform light grey from plate to flesh was perfect. He wasn’t defined by his colony but by his actions. It seemed more…honest somehow.  
  
The Spectre shrugged one shoulder, settling back and crossing his hands over his stomach. “It doesn’t to me,” He said. “But the Councilor is troubled by my barefaced status. I was the youngest turian ever chosen for the Spectres and I was Cabal. My loyalty is to myself and the Hierarchy as a whole, not just to my birthplace.”  
  
There was something unidentifiable in his tone that told Nihlus he wasn’t getting the whole story. Yes, there was still a lot of stigma surrounding biotic turians, who were always barefaced but… “That can’t be the only reason Saren.”  
  
“It’s not.” Saren said simply but his subharmonics held something Nihlus had never heard from him before, something almost like sadness.  
  
“Ok, you’re going to have to elaborate for me.”  
  
Saren sat back up then, feet planted firmly on the floor as he turned to him and leaned forward. Without thinking Nihlus copied his position. “What I’m going to tell you has to remain between us.”  
  
Nihlus found that he suddenly felt like he had opened the humans’ Pandora’s Box. “Yes Saren, of course.”

“Before I was made a Spectre…” Saren paused and drew in a deep breath. “The Councilor and I had a relationship.”  
  
“A relationship.” Nihlus repeated. _He can’t possibly mean what I think he does._  
  
“We dated.”  
  
He felt his mandibles flop away from his jaw as his mouth dropped open in amazed disbelief. “You’re so full of shit.” He said. “You don’t date, you just fu-“ He forced his mouth closed before he said something to endanger his life.  
  
“I was young Nihlus,” Saren told him with a wan flick of his mandibles. “It was a brief but passionate affair. Had we continued, it would have destroyed his reputation. We couldn’t…we couldn’t be together, not publically because he was the Councilor and I was…just this much younger barefaced biotic. Sparatus didn’t want our relationship to be secret, he wanted…I told him no and I left. He hasn’t forgiven me for leaving and I don’t expect him to. Though recently we did manage to reconcile.”  
  
It was honestly the last thing he’d ever thought to learn about his mentor, or the Councilor for that matter. He recalled how Saren had disappeared after that man had tried to hurt him and Nihlus had been unable to find him during his own lost wandering of the Citadel. Could he have-? “Is that where you went when-?”  
  
“It was.” Saren told him. “And I know your next question is if we’ve reconciled enough to try again, the answer to that is no. We simply don’t get along anymore.”  
  
He looked at Saren, really looked at him. His shoulders were slouched and head hanging down between them, eyes on the floor. His hands were clasped loosely together between his knees and he was breathing with a deliberate slowness like he was trying to stay in control of himself.  
  
 _Spirits…He regrets it…_ “Saren?”  
  
“Hmm?”  
  
“Do you,” _Spirits help me I can’t ask him this._ “Did you love him?”  
  
Saren sighed softly, almost unheard. “No.” Under his words and buried so deep in his subtones, Nihlus thought he heard different.  
  
Then he changed, his shoulders rising and straightening out as he shook the somber mood off and discarded it like a coat. And if Saren’s little confession hadn’t been running a loop in his head, he’d have never known the man had just bared his soul and maybe a small part of his heart too.  
  
“I thought you were going to leave me be Nihlus.” His voice had gone cold as death. “Find something to occupy yourself outside of my company.”  
  
It was an order Nihlus would be stupid to refuse. He stood slowly, eyes never leaving Saren as the man turned his attention back the viewport. The impulse to wrap his arms around the Spectre, to offer him some kind of comfort, to show that he understood and that he was sorry, was fierce but Nihlus wasn’t suicidal.  
  
He banished it all from his mind and went to sleep; only waking when he heard knocking on his door and Saren’s muffled voice through the metal. As Nihlus put on his armor, he wished he’d never asked about the Councilor. It was harder to think of Saren in the same way he had been once he knew the man actually possessed a heart, one that, if Nihlus was reading things right, was broken. But at the same time it helped him lower Saren from the pedestal he’d put the man on, brought him down to a level that was more real, more…he wasn’t sure what word applied. Some of the mystery and aloofness was stripped away, just leaving the man underneath. Nihlus had gotten exactly what he wanted however, he knew the truth about Saren as an individual; he was just the same as everyone else. He loved and he hurt. Now that Nihlus knew, he wished he didn’t.  
  
But he couldn’t waste the minutes thinking on it, or letting it turn over and over in his head and coating his thoughts in something that felt oily and gross and _wrong._ Nihlus resolved to give what he’d learned about his mentor some thought at another time but currently, he needed his head clear and on straight. He could worry about his own feelings on the matter later; now was not the time.  
  
 _Fuck. I should have just asked to see his bio-amp._  
  
+_-_-_-_-_+  
  
Saren looked as if he hadn’t slept and, hell, maybe he hadn’t. Nihlus wisely didn’t comment on it or their last conversation. If the Spectre wasn’t going to bring it up, then he certainly wasn’t going to either. They traded silent nods of greeting and then Saren jumped right into his plan of attack, or rather, infiltration and then attack. It was straightforward and brilliant in its simplicity.  
  
But as they broke atmo and neared the base, a significant problem made itself known and the older Spectre had to make changes. With the terrain and the location of the base it wasn't possible to disguise a landing, the mercenaries would know someone had entered their airspace. But they _wouldn't_ expect their guests to charge in through the front door. So they did just that, entering the passcode they’d gotten off the buyer and tossing in a handful of flash grenades as a greeting. Were it not for the possibility of innocents in the first area, Nihlus knew Saren would have used incendiaries instead. It was an inelegant but effective approach. The near silent flash grenades afforded them a little bit of surprise and in a matter of minutes he and Saren had cleared the entry point and the first few rooms beyond it. At a signal from the other Spectre, Nihlus headed in a different direction and made his way to the lower levels to search for the reported slaves and the weaponry.  
  
Neither he nor Saren spoke through the comms, when they had to talk it was with specific mechanical clicks and a series of different tones through their omnitools. Within thirty minutes Nihlus had cleared his own section of the base but he didn’t find anything of relevance to the mission; no slaves and no cache of weapons. Using their nonverbal communication, he asked Saren what he should do next. A few seconds later he was working his way back topside.  
  
Saren had left a lot of destruction in his wake, probably more than was strictly necessary. But he’d had a stressful night.  
  
 _We’re not thinking about that, remember?_  
  
There was blood splattered everywhere, puddles of it on the floor and smears of it on the walls: Blue, purple, red, and all of it mixing together into an ugly black-brown. Nihlus ignored it, it wasn’t the first time Saren had gone a little overboard in the creation of chaos. Biotics were difficult to control at the best of times, but much more so when the wielder was under large amounts of pressure.  
  
 _We are not thinking about that._ He was firmer with the mental reprimand this time and finally his brain seemed to get the point. Nihlus started to walk faster, still alert despite all the blood and smoke and unmoving bodies. Saren did not like to be kept waiting.

He was covered in blood when Nihlus eventually made it to him, none of it his, thankfully. Saren gave him another of those silent nods, a flick of his mandibles asking if he’d recovered anything. Nihlus shook his head no and turned his attention to the Blue Suns commander that was steadily getting back to his feet. The batarian’s face was bloody and a glance sideways showed him that the other Spectre had fresh blood on the knuckles of his gloves. Once he was standing, and confronted with two Spectres, the batarian made the intelligent decision and didn’t move.  
  
“What do you want?” He asked.  
  
Nihlus stayed silent, crossing his arms over his chest and leaning back against the door nonchalantly. Saren strode closer and made a show of adjusting his gauntlets. The batarian took an unconscious step back and paled visually. Like the coat of somberness he’d tossed off the night before, Saren shifted easily into one that was blatantly threatening. Nihlus actually expected the room to drop in temperature at his mentor’s sudden change. It was meant to be terrifying and it was, Saren had mastered the art of inducing fear.  
  
He loved to watch the man work.  
  
Better than watching Saren work, was _hearing_ him work. The way his voice would deepen, turn cold and glass smooth and dangerous. The Blue Suns’ couldn’t hear the promises of blood and pain in his subtones but Nihlus could overlook the actual words and just listen to the sounds of them. Dark toned and heavy with intent, Saren’s harmonics dropped into the lower registers usually used in more intimate settings. Nihlus had heard them from the man before to know, not directly, but he’d overheard Saren talking to any one of his lovers like that more than once.  
  
He knew Saren wasn’t getting off on torturing the batarian, he’d once told Nihlus that torture was only useful if it had a purpose but doing so for pleasure was sick. Although he did get into it and a light seemed to turn on behind his eyes as his focus narrowed down to pulling the answers from his subject in the most effective way. A way that was often times more brutal than Nihlus was comfortable with. He winced at every yelp and scream that came from the batarian as Saren broke the bones in his hand one by one. Frankly, it turned his stomach but he was able to shut it out and just listen to Saren.  
  
 _Spirits…his voice._ Nihlus loved it; the heat, the intensity, the darkness that swam in his subvocals. Listening to Saren threaten and intimidate in a whispering hiss of primary and secondary tones was exciting. _Hell, I wouldn’t mind being on the opposite end of one of Saren’s interrogations if it meant he would talk me like that._  
  
That backlit look in Saren’s eyes was astonishingly menacing, silver irises darkened as his pupils expanded. He was half grinning, a cruel and disturbing grin that guaranteed agony and lots of it. He had moved up the batarian’s arm, breaking the wrist now and Nihlus flinched at the sound. But he couldn’t stop watching, couldn’t stop listening to the myriad of tones in Saren’s voice.  
  
He wasn’t sure how much time had passed, so focused on his mentor, but it seemed like the batarian wasn’t giving out the information Saren wanted. The Spectre decided to get serious then, pulling one of the knives he carried and holding it where his victim could see. Nihlus swallowed, and unable to watch what he knew the man was going to do with that knife, he shifted his focus to Saren’s face.

That was when the Spectre began to make his threats in a purr that had Nihlus immediately hard behind his plates. It got worse when he started using phrases like ‘submit to me’ and ‘just give in, I’ll take care of everything.’ He knew what Saren meant, he knew the words weren’t sexual in any way but he couldn’t stop his brain from feeding him all sorts of different situations. Most of which involved being naked with Saren between his legs and whispering those words in his ear in that same purring rumble.  
  
Thank the Spirits that Saren had his back turned because Nihlus was suddenly so hard he was straining against the inside of his pants. So hard that he was lightheaded and the other Spectre just kept talking in that calm, smooth and sensual voice and he could clearly imagine what that voice sounded like with aroused subtones. Fuck, the last thing he wanted was for Saren to think he got off on this shit. But if he stood there much longer, things were going to get awkward fast.  
  
Nihlus cleared his throat. "You got this covered Saren?” He asked with a death grip on his own tones to hide what he was feeling. “I want to do a final check, make sure I didn’t miss anything.”  
  
Saren didn’t look at him, solely fixated on the batarian howling in pain at his feet. “Go.”  
  
+_-_-_-_-_+  
  
Why the fuck didn't he wear the section of armor that covered his crotch again? Oh yeah, because it was _restricting_. For fuck's sake he was an idiot. A horny idiot, stuck on a shitty asteroid in the middle of a mercenary outpost while Saren beat the fuck out of a slaver a couple of rooms behind him. Trapped between his open plates, his own slickness and the rough fabric of his fatigues had Nihlus feeling half insane. He’d hoped a few minutes away from Saren’s sexy voice would calm him down but no such luck. He still felt electrified and the friction of his pants rubbing on his cock with every step he took was _not_ helping. He tried readjusting himself through the fabric to take away a little of the pressure but fuck…  
  
  
He needed to find somewhere to…well, he certainly wasn’t going to go back behind his plates any time soon. _So then I need to find somewhere to take care of this… I can’t go back to the ship, if I got within five meters of his ship he’d know and then he’d kick my ass for leaving in the middle of a mission. And I can’t go back to him, not until this is dealt with. Fuck…_  
  
Nihlus suddenly realized he’d never removed his hand from the front of his pants and that he’d begun to grind against his own palm. _Damn that feels good,_ He steadily added more pressure until he was just shy of squeezing his erection through the durable cloth. It wasn’t enough, not even close. If he wanted any relief from the thrum of sheer need that was making his dick pulse, he’d have to-  
  
 _What the fuck am I thinking?_ Nihlus tried to take his hand away but failed when he did actually squeeze himself through his pants, a low groan tearing out of his mouth. _Fuck…there’s no waiting for this to go away. I’ll just find somewhere to-to fuck my hand…Shit._  
  
Decision made –stupid, reckless, idiotic and fucking hell Saren was going to kill him- Nihlus ducked into room at the end of the hall. Distantly he could still hear that batarian screaming but he shut it out as he took his gloves off, hooked them to his belt and reached for his zipper.

The sound of the zipper sliding down was loud in Nihlus’ quiet little room stuffed with shipping crates and containers. But it wasn’t nearly as loud as Saren’s exasperated voice in his head.  
  
 _”Really Nihlus? Have you no control? Either put it away or hurry up.”_  
  
Of course that assumed Saren said anything before he eviscerated Nihlus on the spot. He shook that possibility away, grasping his freed cock tightly, his hand sliding easily up and down thanks to his own wetness no matter how hard he squeezed. Putting his back to the wall behind him, Nihlus let his imagination run wild and rushed himself to orgasm. No telling how much time he had until Saren came looking for him.  
  
 _Saren…_ Nihlus thought and pulled a few of his favorite fantasies from his mind. The Spectre slamming him against a wall like he did all his lovers, shoving a knee between his thighs to hold him in place, grabbing him by the hips and-  
  
 _And biting my throat hard as he can, fuck I don’t even care if he bleeds me I just want his teeth in me… Want his cock in me too. I want him to fuck me against the wall like he always has his fucks. He always makes them scream. How long would it take him to make me scream? Spirits, will he make me beg? Sure, I could do that, beg him to fuck me. Whatever he wants from me, he can have it._  
  
In Nihlus’ mind, Saren was biting under his jaw, tongue coming out to taste him, and his knee pressing harder while moving back and forth. Outside his mind, Nihlus had his eyes closed as he tried to hold on to the image in his head and played his mentor’s voice in that low tone over and over in his memory. He started to thrust counterpoint to the slick strokes from his hand. He needed to hurry this up. Nihlus threw himself into another fantasy.  
  
 _Saren was on his knees and Nihlus held his head firmly, guiding the older man’s motions as he licked. His tongue gave a thorough exploration of Nihlus’ dick, covering every raised ridge, tracing every vein, licking away his own slick lubricant and replacing it with warm saliva. Then breathing on it to turn it cool…_  
  
Nihlus shuddered head to foot and his cock pulsed again as his blood surged through him. Damn it he was close, already skirting the edge of his release, just a little more and he could cum. He sped up his thrusts and his strokes and dug the talons of his free hand into his hip, knowing that as worked up as he was he would hurt himself if he used both hands.  
  
His thoughts scattered, grasping at both fantasy and all the things he’d ever witnessed Saren doing to a lover. The biting, the scratching, the motion of his hips as he hammered into the pliant form he’d pinned to the wall. Suddenly, Nihlus was right at his edge and about to topple over.  
  
“Oh, fuck, Saren, fuck, fuck.”  
  
The Spectre’s voice thrummed through his mind. _Nihlus._  
  
“Nihlus.” And through the room.  
  
His eyes snapped open. Saren was standing there, really standing there, not even five feet from him and he wasn’t looking at his face. Nihlus felt like ice had spontaneously formed along his spine. “Oh shit.”

He didn’t breathe and he didn’t dare to move, he just stared at Saren while his heart threatened to explode from his chest. _I’m dead,_ He thought, trying not to make a noise of fear. _I’m dead, Saren’s going to kill me._  
  
Saren’s gaze traveled slowly upward until their eyes met and held. That ice that had made a home in Nihlus’ nervous system started to spread through his muscles and despite his fear he was unable to let himself go. The Spectre took a slow step forward and then another and Nihlus went so tense he felt like a deep breath would cause him to shatter. Inches away from him now, he could feel Saren’s body heat thawing out the cold in his blood and he closed his eyes.  
  
Nihlus was too shocked, or maybe too terrified to react when his hand was knocked away from his dick. He flinched and immediately turned his head to offer Saren the side of his neck in a gesture that said he accepted whatever painful thing the man was going to do to him. His knees nearly gave out when he felt teeth lightly graze his throat, then Saren’s hand wrapping around it and holding him firmly to the wall with pressure that was just shy of cutting off his air. When the Spectre’s much larger hand enveloped the tip of his shaft and slid down, Nihlus lost all sense of self.  
  
Before he was even aware what he was doing, his lust overrode his sense of self-preservation and fear. Nihlus distantly realized that he’d never been more turned on or more terrified, the adrenaline that overwhelmed his system was exhilarating. He started to thrust helplessly back and forth in Saren’s hand, electricity shooting up his spine again and hitting the base of his skull like a tank. The Spectre looked up - _holy fuck I’m taller than he is_ \- into his eyes with an intense but unfathomable expression. Nihlus dug his talons into the wall behind him to keep from grabbing Saren and-and he didn’t know what. He couldn’t look away from the man’s silver irises, couldn’t stop the desperate movements of his hips.  
  
Saren blinked once and if Nihlus hadn’t been so focused on his face, he would have missed the smug flick of his mandibles. _He’s enjoying this as much as I am._ Nihlus thought, still thrusting into Saren’s tight hand. The man had been touching him for less than five minutes and staring up into his eyes the entire time. He never once looked away. It was at that moment that he was sent hurtling over his edge.  
  
If he’d had the time, he would have been embarrassed about cumming so fast but Saren’s hand on his throat shifted to the back of his neck and hauled him forward too quickly for his brain to process. Nihlus expected the man to kiss him, wanted him to and had even leaned down in anticipation only to have Saren slip just far enough away to prevent it. He tried not to feel disappointed but he’d wondered how the man tasted for so long.  
  
The Spectre grabbed his wrist and used it to twist his arm behind his back as he marched Nihlus deeper into the room. Turian muscles and ligaments weren’t made to bend like that and the position was meant to be painful. Dread reasserted itself in his veins and that little bit of languidness he’d begun to feel was replaced by a fresh dose of adrenaline. Nihlus _knew_ he was going to be punished, he just didn’t know how. He gave half a thought to digging his feet into the floor and resisting but Saren was much too strong for that to work.  
  
“I’m sorry-“He began but didn’t know how to finish the sentence and his voice was so high with anxiety that it hurt his ears.  
  
Saren snorted, squeezed both his wrist and the back of his neck tighter. “Like I haven’t seen you do that a hundred times already.”  
  
Nihlus froze and then tried to turn around to look at the other man. Was Saren implying what he thought he was? His mouth opened and closed a few times. “…You’re joking.”  
  
“Am I?” The Spectre asked completely deadpan.  
  
He wasn’t sure how to answer; Saren was utterly unreadable when Nihlus was looking directly at him. But at his back and holding him immobile? He couldn’t even guess.  
  
Saren sighed and Nihlus was sure he heard some sound of desire in his undertones. “Did you really think I didn’t know?” He chuckled lowly. “Spirits Nihlus, I designed that program myself.”

It was stupefied confusion that hit Nihlus first, then an icy splash of shock. _Saren knew and has known all this time? Fucking spirits this man is so…damn hot._ A rush of pure arousal shot through him and intensified as the Spectre moved up against his back. Saren pushed him forward another step and Nihlus heard him snapping open the seals on his armor. Knew the man was doing it one-handed because he still had that guiding grip on his nape.  
  
“Do you know what it did to me?” Saren asked, rubbing his front to Nihlus’ back. “Knowing that you were watching every time I fucked someone?”  
  
Suddenly he couldn’t breathe properly, his lungs going into overdrive and he was only able to pant. “N-no,” His mandibles fluttered against his jaw and he knew his subtones revealed just how eager he was for this- whatever it was- to continue. “Wh-why don’t you tell me Saren?”  
  
The Spectre grasped Nihlus’ waist and pulled their bodies together, slowly rocking his own hips. Breathing would become an issue soon because he could still only gasp. Saren’s mouth touching that spot on the back of his neck didn’t help and neither did the heat of his breath. “It made me picture you in my lover’s place.”  
  
Nihlus was instantly hard again and the sensation of blood rushing to fill his cock left him dizzy. He staggered back against Saren, physically overwhelmed by his desires and the implications of the Spectre’s words. He supported Nihlus with startling ease, as if he weighed nothing, and again urged him forward another step.  
  
He bumped into something that stood about as tall as his thighs and it took him a second to realize it was a shipping container full of Spirits only knew what but it was sturdy and heavy. Saren released his wrist and pushed his fingers hard into an unarmored section on Nihlus’ lower back. The sharp pain to a very sensitive pressure point had him falling forward and he barely got his hands up in time to prevent smacking his face onto the surface of the container.  
  
 _This…this is surreal….I’m dreaming, I have to be dreaming._  
  
Saren pushed against him from behind, Nihlus’ rear fitting perfectly in the space between the man’s hips. Then that hand was back on his neck and holding him down, his other hand slid down Nihlus’ side in a slow caress. Saren let go of his neck but didn’t step away, in fact he pushed forward a little harder. His goal was perfectly clear.  
  
Another, wilder cross of dread and excitement zipped through Nihlus making him feel almost giddy. “Seriously Saren?” Was that a hint of hysteria in his tones? “Over a crate of eezo?”  
  
To his absolute surprise, Saren laughed. “Oh Nihlus, I’m going to have you on every type of surface.” There was promise in the Spectre’s harmonics. “But if you’d prefer the floor…”  
  
“Not really.”  
  
“As I thought.” Saren’s gauntlets landed by his face and then his bare hands were pulling Nihlus back by the hips. He gripped the edge of the crate tightly, surprised when his bare talons didn't leave marks. Spirits this was what he’d wanted for so long, why was he so afraid now? The other Spectre inched his pants down, baring Nihlus to the cool air, but didn’t take them off.  
  
However, Saren did position him atop the crate a little differently so that his chest and face rested on the metal and his lower half stuck out further than was comfortable. Nihlus was severely off balance and the only thing he even remotely liked about being bent over the waist-high box with his ass in the air was Saren flush against him and the erection he could feel through the man’s fatigues.  
  
 _Oh, oh yes. He’s going to fuck me right here…._  
  
The Spectre caressed down his side, stopping on the arch of his hipbone. “I’ve never waited so long for a lover before. I had expected you to jump me in the elevator the night of your ceremony.”  
  
Nihlus wasn’t sure how much more of Saren’s offhanded teasing he could take. Did the man even know what he was doing to him? Probably, nothing got past him. _Wait did he just say he was waiting for me?_

Saren’s caress traveled over his hip to his lower back and pushed up under the lip of his armor, adding pressure to his spine slowly to keep him immobile. He couldn’t take this much longer, not with Saren so close but still far enough away to deny him what he wanted.  
  
“You-“Spirits, his mouth was so dry. “You told Cicero that I was ‘utterly outside your interest’. Remember that?”  
  
The Spectre made a dismissive noise, almost a growl but certainly annoyed. “Of course you were. At the time you were my student Nihlus, it wasn’t appropriate. “  
  
 _It’s wasn’t appropriate?_ Nihlus repeated in his head and tried to twist around to look at Saren. The other man dug his fingers into that spot alongside his spine and he was forced flat at the flash of pain.  
  
“You…” _No, he can’t be saying what I think he is. It’s not his style at all._ “Were waiting for me to approach you? To initiate this?”  
  
Saren bent over him until their mandibles brushed as he whispered into Nihlus’ ear with subtones that were mildly teasing. “Of all the things you asked me recently, I was disappointed when you forgot this one.”  
  
Nihlus opened his mouth, shut it, and repeated the process once more before his tongue came away from the roof of his mouth. “I don’t think I could be more clear Saren.” He said over his shoulder, turning his head as much as he could and his mouth lightly touched one of the man’s mandibles. His tongue darted out for a quick taste. “Well, Spectre, what are you waiting for? Get to it.”  
  
He braced himself against the container, mentally preparing himself because he knew Saren was just going to shove his cock deep on the first stroke. The man had no concept of gentle, and steeling his mind against the coming pain because there was no way the Spectre could know he hadn’t done this before….. He felt Saren push against him, not his cock like Nihlus had fully expected, but his fingers instead. Easing slowly into him, stretching him and making his body burn in a way he’d never felt before.  
  
The older Spectre took his sweet time getting him ready and he felt boneless, Saren’s weight on his back the only thing that kept him from sinking to the floor. He was only aware of his mentor, the heat from his body, the sound of his steady breathing- Nihlus himself could only pant- and the careful way the man thrust his fingers into him. The burn of his stretched muscles was maddeningly uncomfortable, but the sensation of being filled made it bearable. He could barely wait for Saren to actually fill him and he pushed back to encourage the man to go faster.  
  
“Patience Nihlus,” The Spectre said and slowed his strokes even more.  
  
“Fuck patience would you just-“  
  
Nihlus shivered, his eyes rolling back in his head as Saren’s fingers grazed something deep inside. He purred lowly with pleasure and let his grip loosen from the container’s edge. There wasn’t any reason to hang on any more, now that Saren was taking care of him.  
  
“You were saying?” He asked with smug harmonics that that he didn’t even try to dampen.  
  
“You’re a bastard.” Nihlus murmured. “But I still…want you.”  
  
“Do you?” Saren made some shifting and twisting motion, running over that extremely sensitive spot inside that had Nihlus pushing his face into the crate and moaning loudly, another shiver tearing through him.  
  
 _Fuck, what the hell is that?_  
  
“Spirits yes,” He said breathlessly. “Damn it Saren, don’t make me wait any longer.”

Abruptly he was empty as Saren pulled away from him, both hands converging on his hips as the older man adjusted his stance. Nihlus held his breath, his chest burning with the effort and his every muscles tensing-  
  
“Relax yourself Nihlus,” Saren muttered above him, delivering another one of those out-of-character gentle touches to his side. “And don’t hold your breath either, breathe normally.”  
  
Nihlus nodded against the crate and replaced his lack of breathing with a lack of vision, screwing his eyes shut. He wasn’t able to relax his muscles though, his entire body stiff with anticipation. He heard Saren sigh softly, and knew with sudden clarity that the Spectre was aware he’d never been with another man before.  
  
“I’m not going to-“ An extremely loud and repetitive noise- a klaxon- interrupted him, startling both of them into standing.  
  
“Is that a-?”  
  
“A self-destruct warning?” Saren asked, his subtones edging on furious. “I thought you were doing a ‘final check of things’.”  
  
“Obviously I wasn’t.” Nihlus tucked himself away and followed the other Spectre at a run.  
  
+_-_-_-_-_+  
  
 _What in the fuck just happened?_ Nihlus asked himself five minutes later as Saren pushed past him and ran to the cockpit to get them away from the base that was set to blow in another thirty or so seconds. _What did I – did we- just do?_  
  
He made his way to the front of the ship and Saren seated in the pilot’s chair, hands flying over the haptic interface with blinding speed. He flopped into the copilot’s chair absentmindedly and felt the ship lurch forward despite the internal dampeners and then they were quickly leaving the asteroid’s orbit behind them. Saren was entirely focused on the controls which gave Nihlus a moment to process all that had occurred.  
  
His conclusion? He had to be absolutely insane. He’d snuck off to rub one out mid-mission because Saren’s voice as he tortured a slaver had turned him on. Then when his mentor had found him, Nihlus has let his hormones and libido call the shots instead of his brain. Oh it had been fun, a lot of fun, and he had to fight down a shudder at the memory of Saren’s hand wrapped around him and his fingers inside him. Nihlus had retracted during the mad dash out of the base but his plates hadn’t even made the attempt to close and he was over-sensitized and doing his absolute best not to think about how _empty_ he felt.  
  
He glanced over at Saren without turning his head, trying to gauge the older Spectre’s current mood. Nihlus saw the definition of collective calm. Saren was completely relaxed, there wasn’t any tenseness to his shoulders and his mandibles rested at a natural height against his jaw. He seemed wholly unconcerned and unmoved while Nihlus thrummed with excess energy and a physical need he’d never felt before.  
  
 _Is that the end of it?_ He wondered with rising anger. _He makes me cum, bends me over a crate and then touches me like no-one else ever has before. Tells me that he’s going to fuck me over and over, and now that we’re here sitting next to each other, he acts like I’m not even here and like we didn’t do anything. Fucking Spirits, if he’s like this with everyone he fucks then I’ve got no idea why they keep coming back to him….I can’t believe I just gave in so easily._  
  
Saren turned away from the control display and the hologram winked out, taking away some of the light in the cabin. He stared at Nihlus for a moment, studying him, and then stood. He was still an intimidating presence but now that Nihlus knew he was taller, somehow it left Saren just a tad less imposing.  
  
The impassivity bled away from the Spectre’s face and his mandibles slanted in such a way to form a salacious smirk. Nihlus knew then that they weren’t near finished what they’d started but he also knew that he wasn’t going to let Saren have every ounce of the control. If he wanted this to continue, then he’d have to earn it and Nihlus didn’t plan to make it easy.  
  
“Stand up,” Saren said and his subharmonics rumbled with both desire and command. “Strip.”

Nihlus stood and closed what little distance had been between him and Saren. He leaned down until their eyes were even. “I’m not going to strip just because you tell me to.” He said indignantly and then walked past the Spectre, wondering if he would follow or jerk Nihlus back to him.  
  
Halfway down the hall that led to the tiny common/dining area, he heard the man’s footsteps echoing his. But it wasn’t the only thing he heard. The hiss of pressure seals, the clank of metal on metal and the heavy thunk of multiple items hitting the floor prompted Nihlus to stop and turn around.  
  
 _Did…not expect that._ He thought when his eyes landed on Saren, who was without armor and nearly all the way out of his undersuit. It seemed to be caught over his hips and the man fought with it for a moment before using his talons to simply cut through the fabric and throw it away. _…But I definitely won’t complain._  
  
Nihlus stared at him, hands splayed over his own hips as he took in the sight of his mentor. He’d never seen Saren completely naked before. Taller than most turians but still an inch or two shorter than Nihlus, broad-shouldered, with a narrow waist and hips, the unvarying shade of grey from head to toe, and the area in between his legs that slowly spread open and the slickness he could see despite the distance…. _Damn,_  
  
Saren took a step toward him, his body shifting in enticing ways. “I expect my orders to be followed to the letter.” The man’s subharmonics sounded purely menacing at first but listening closer, Nihlus was able to hear a playful undercurrent. “Strip Nihlus.”  
  
Nihlus instantly recognized the game Saren was playing with him, the same game he played with all his lovers. He’d seen it every time, the lack of competition, the way the other men always surrendered without any fight, Nihlus knew his mentor was bored of that. He didn’t _want_ Nihlus to immediately obey, oh no, Saren wanted to see if he’d be a _challenge_.  
  
Nihlus started to walk backwards, shedding the pieces of his armor bit by bit as he went. Shoulders, chest, arms, sides, hips, thighs and lower leg and let them drop without concern of where they landed. Saren followed step by step, eyes glued to his face but completely aware of every piece that fell. By the time Nihlus was down to his undersuit, Saren’s dick was fully hard and visually slick. Spirits-damn it, it made his mouth water and his heart pound.  
  
“Like what you see?” He asked, making the challenge in his secondary tones obvious as he eased out of his undersuit and let it fall too. The older Spectre didn’t reply but Nihlus saw his cock jump eagerly; that was the exact type of reaction he wanted. “I think you do. I think you’re fighting not to touch me. Why hold yourself back when it’s obvious what _we_ want?”  
  
“As long as I’ve waited,” The man purred. “I want to feel all of you against me.”  
  
Saren was just suddenly _there_ , his chest flush with Nihlus’ own and his arms wrapped around his waist to hold them together. He hissed with mock defiance, he was just as hard as Saren and it wasn’t like he could hide it. A grin was the man’s response to that, and then he was urging Nihlus backwards. He slipped his hand around the back of Saren’s neck, skirting over his bio-amp and going higher until his fingers disappeared under the long fringe. The older man made some sound Nihlus hadn’t heard from him before and let his head fall back into Nihlus’ hand; he didn’t need any more permission for what he wanted than that.  
Their mouths met gently at first, and if he didn’t know better Nihlus would have said he heard Saren gasp in surprise at the contact. _Saren thought I was going for his throat._ He smiled, his mandibles flaring widely, and flicked his tongue out for his first real taste of the Spectre. Which was when he learned something about his mentor he’d never suspected. Despite all the sex, Saren wasn’t much of a kisser. His tongue was clumsy and forceful as it plunged along Nihlus’ own to get nicked by one of his teeth. Saren groaned at that and Nihlus felt the cock at his thigh twitch and jump. No doubt about it now; pain was a turn-on for the Spectre. But Nihlus wasn’t the type of man that got off on causing it and certainly not with someone he…cared about.  
  
He ended the kiss there, placing a hand on Saren’s chest to hold him back. Looking at the man, Nihlus thought he seemed a little …dreamy, but he had to be imagining it. Although he certainly hadn’t imagined Saren’s fumbling as their mouths connected. The almost careless thrust of his tongue and the excess of ardor told Nihlus that he had little to no experience with kissing. It wasn’t really a surprise; of all the people he’d witnessed Saren with, he could only think of two that had kissed him. Hadn’t the Councilor-  
 _Stop. Right there. We are not thinking about that. Ever._  
  
Then again, maybe he was spoiled from spending so much of his time kissing a species with flexible lips. Tilting his head, he caught the man’s pale gaze. “Hey,” Nihlus kept his harmonics playful and coaxing. “Can I teach you something?”  
  
Saren gave him a scalding look that made it clear how he felt about being taught anything and grasped his hips tightly.  
  
“Humor me, please?”  
  
The Spectre pushed him back another step and Nihlus felt his backside encounter a table. Specifically, their kitchen table; he changed tactics then.  
  
“I know you can’t stand that I’m better than you at something.” He said with a fake arrogance but very real attempt to provoke. “Let me show you how you can change that.”  
  
Saren sighed with exasperation. “If it will shut you up so we can continue, then fine.”  
  
Nihlus smiled at him again, an expression that Saren didn’t return but it wasn’t discouraging. He kept eye contact with the man as he leaned down and began the exciting process of teaching the Spectre how to really kiss. It was a heady experience, the tiny amount of influence he held over Saren the moment he opened his mouth and the man followed his motions precisely. Spirits he was a quick learner, picking up the basics almost the instant Nihlus showed him how to move his tongue, his jaw and mandibles, where to lick and how much pressure to add. When he finally broke away, Nihlus found that they were both breathing hard.  
  
Saren had that vaguely dreamy look to his eyes again. It didn’t last long. He grabbed the ends of Nihlus’ fringe and jerked his head back, immediately diving forward to lick and bite at his throat. Nihlus let him and even wrapped his hand around Saren’s nape to encourage a bit more pressure from those teeth. He gave an appreciative moan when the older man worked a hand between their bodies and started stroking him. Saren only touched his cock for a moment though, as if he’d been testing just how serious Nihlus was.

He tried to kiss the Spectre again but Saren tilted his head out of reach at the last second and shifted the hold on his hips, making it firmer. Nihlus rocked forward just a bit, nonverbally asking the older man to keep touching him _right there damn it_ but he was ignored. Saren’s hands tracked up his sides, talons scraping at the unplated skin until he’d reached the bottom of Nihlus’ ribs and then he headed back down. He had expected something a lot faster paced than this but Saren seemed to be enjoying himself so he didn’t try to…up the ante. Then the Spectre grabbed his hips again and lifted him up onto the table’s edge.

Nihlus’ breath caught in his throat as Saren looked at him and without breaking eye contact, let his hands slide down his hips and over his thighs to his knees. The older man pushed Nihlus’ knees apart with a deliberate slowness and when he’d spread his legs as far as he could, Saren moved to stand between them.  
  
And then he grinned wickedly. “Is this more what you were expecting?” He asked pompously.  
  
Nihlus grinned back at him, his chest rumbling with a subvocal ‘challenge accepted.’ Saren had obviously concluded that he wasn’t going to be as _obedient_ as the others he’d fucked.  
  
“It’s pretty close to it, yeah. But…”  
  
Saren stepped closer and their chests touched. “Oh?” He asked.  
  
“I like things a little more _mutual._ ”  
  
The look of absolute shock on Saren’s face when Nihlus grasped his erection was well worth any future retaliation. For a full five seconds the Spectre didn’t breathe, but the sound he made as Nihlus started caressing him…  
  
 _Shit, that’s the stuff wet-dreams are made of._  
  
With his other hand, he pulled the older man’s mouth back to his and kissed him fiercely. Saren tried to match his finesse but it was apparent Nihlus had finally found something he was more skilled at. The Spectre didn’t let him revel in it, jerking his head back with a soft gasp and starting to rock his hips.  
  
Nihlus turned all his focus to the shaft slipping against his palm and took his first real good look at it. _No wonder he makes them scream,_ He mused, still grinning. _He’s huge, I can barely get my fingers all the way around him._ Nihlus pumped his hand up and down, alternating between a tight and loose grip to keep Saren guessing.  
  
He’d just begun going faster when Saren grabbed his wrist to stop him. Nihlus spared him a glance and trilled out a question.  
  
“Damn it Nihlus,” The older man chuckled, grasping the base of his cock and easing it out of Nihlus’ hand.  
  
“Close?” He taunted lightly.  
  
“You are not going to make me cum before I’ve actually had you.”  
  
Saren pulled him to the very edge of the table by his hips. The motion was so sudden and unexpected that Nihlus nearly fell to his back but caught himself on his elbows at the last second. Saren looped an arm around his lower back for support and pulled one of his legs tight to his side, putting Nihlus’ knee even with his armpit. The position gave the older man a lot of space to work with and a fair amount of easy access.  
  
Nihlus braced himself as his heart began to pound. Saren had already shown all the gentle caution he was going to and for a few moments he was sure he would only feel pain when the man finally entered him. But as he felt the Spectre’s dick pushing at his loosened hole, Saren paused.  
  
“Can you stay like this if I let your leg go?” He asked and Nihlus nodded, already too far gone for words. “I know I told you to relax but I can see you’re not going to do that on your own.”  
  
The recently freed hand appeared just under his fringe and found the spot that made every turian go blind with bliss. Saren took the advantage of the distraction to slide into Nihlus with one continuous and smooth thrust from his hips.  
The older man hilted inside him and the breath he’d been holding in uneasy anticipation rushed out. It was nothing like he’d expected, the pain he’d heard about, the pleasure he knew would come later; but the combination of the two that slammed his system like a rampaging krogan? Nihlus hadn’t known about the intensity of the stinging burn as his body stretched to accommodate Saren or the lightning strike of pure ecstasy when he easily found that same sensitive spot from earlier inside. It was passionate, probably the most extreme thing he’d ever felt and that included every time he’d let an asari in his head. The Spectre grabbed his chin then and pulled down until their eyes locked and then Saren’s mouth was resting lightly on his, not quite a kiss before he pulled away.  
  
“Spirits,” The man whispered and his tones were strained. _”Spirits,”_  
  
Nihlus nodded, realized his forehead was resting on Saren’s shoulder and that the older man was almost bent over him. There was less than an inch between their chests and only enough space between their hips for Nihlus’ dick. 

He found suddenly that he was unsure of where to put his hands. Around Saren’s neck or his shoulders? Or should he be actively touching the man everywhere he could reach? His chest and waist, the flare of his hips, maybe the curve of his lower back…It wasn’t the same as with a woman, when Nihlus would be the one on top with the woman’s arms and legs wrapped around him while he held them close enough to feel every breath and heartbeat. It wasn’t the same as when an asari, Rivale for instance, straddled his hips and he could caress her all over and lick at her soft skin…  
  
Or was it? Really the only differences were that he was the one on the bottom and Saren was inside him. _Deep_ inside him and moving back and forth with only a modicum of the strength Nihlus knew he possessed and was certain the older man preferred. He didn’t know whether he should be grateful for Saren’s conscientiousness or insulted that he thought Nihlus needed the care.  
  
He was a little offended by the fact that Saren still seemed so calm and unmoved, the strained harmonics of his voice the only thing that gave away his pleasure. He wanted to shake that calm and maybe even distort his control. He could _feel_ that the man was enjoying himself but he wanted to _hear_ it too.  
  
But how to…?  
  
Saren’s hand under his fringe shifted to cup the base of his skull and the arm at his lower back jerked him further over the table’s edge until he was balanced even more precariously. It changed the angle of Nihlus’ pelvis and Saren’s thrusts, turned everything a little sharper and had that dick touching new places. His body jolted, a shiver rippling up his spine that had him growing suddenly tight around Saren.  
  
The Spectre gave a quiet growl and drove into him a little harder. _Is that all it takes?_ He wondered. _Give him a squeeze and he’ll growl in my ear?_ A small flex of internal muscles was proof of concept as Saren made the noise again but louder. The older man only let him do it one more time before he took away the arm that had been supporting his back and sent him sprawling onto the table.  
  
“Saren,” He mumbled and shivered again, this time without control.  
  
The Spectre’s hands slammed down next to his head and Saren leaned over him with another low growl, his silver eyes narrowed but full of heat and lust. His mandibles flicked in some unknown expression as he picked up his pace by degrees. Nihlus found a comfortable place for his hands on Saren’s waist just above his hips. He could only hold on as the older man thrust into him over and over, each one harder and deeper than the last. But he was still nowhere near the vicious pounding rhythm Nihlus knew he was capable of.  
  
The want to make Saren lose his self-control, the need to cause the Spectre to fuck him like he’d witnessed time and time again made his blood tingle. Spirits he wanted _that_ , the hard and fast fucking he’d seen Saren take part in so many times. But damn it, he didn’t know how to make the man do that to him.  
  
Then there were the soft sounds he’d managed to wrench from Saren. Faint and barely audible but they held a wealth of meaning from a man that never vocally broadcasted any emotion other than anger or annoyance. To hear him take quiet but quick breaths and make those low growls that vibrated through both their chests was the equivalent of hearing someone else scream their delight. And _he_ was the one pulling those noises from Saren. …Spirits.  
  
Of course, Nihlus appeared extremely vocal by comparison. His moans and growls were louder, longer-lasting, nearly primal in how genuine they were. And that was when he wasn’t panting for breath or kissing Saren. When the sensations of the man buried to the root in him and the talons that scraped at his skin started to overwhelm him, Nihlus couldn’t hold back the lower, more telling tones of his subharmonics. The tones that told Saren just how much pleasure he was feeling, how much he could take and how much more he needed until he came apart at the seams.  
  
And Saren was a very observant man.

He heaved himself upright, hands sliding down Nihlus’ torso and coming to rest on his widespread thighs. The older man caressed over the plates and the skin, let his talons scratch just enough to leave trails of fire but no blood. Sprawled over the table, Nihlus writhed, his back arching and his hands scrambling on its surface as he struggled to pull air into his lungs rather than let it out in a howl. As if he knew, the Spectre slammed into him then and that howl tore from his throat.  
  
Saren gripped him behind the knees and pushed his legs wider apart, much wider than was comfortable and then it was like there was no space between their bodies. Nihlus felt the older man position his legs over his elbows, lifting until they were even with his shoulders and he went so deep it almost hurt. And spirits! Saren was hitting that spot inside him with every thrust.  
  
Nihlus reached for him, tried to get a grip on the protruding keel at the center of his chest but his hands just slid over the smooth plates instead of finding any purchase. Another bliss induced convulsion as the older man hit that spot much harder than he had so far. Nihlus made a grab for Saren’s shoulders this time and only got as high as his bicep when the man drove into him hard enough to bow his spine and make his eyes roll at the intensity. He was vaguely aware that he’d come in contact with his own calf-spur when his hand fell away.  
  
Above him, the Spectre groaned tightly and picked up his pace. His hands tightening under Nihlus’ knees and pulling him open a little more. He felt Saren’s lower stomach brush his cock with every movement of the man’s hips and the heat of his flesh, the thin film of sweat that covered his skin, was quickly becoming more than he could handle.  
  
Nihlus felt like he was going into a tailspin, half delirious with the pleasure that had been overwhelming from the start if only because it was _Saren_ that was doing all this to him. He didn’t know how much longer he could hold on to the electric charge that had built somewhere low in his belly. Lava had replaced his blood and was searing his brain, thoughts had ceased some time ago and Nihlus could only feel.  
  
Saren’s large hands, one wrapped around his thigh and the other clamped on above his hip. The man’s dick was thick and hard and hot and so deep, spreading a sensation Nihlus couldn’t name and didn’t care if it even had one. The weight of his body and the cadence of his hips as he thrust… It still wasn’t anything like what he’d witnessed Saren do to his lovers; actually it was something both more and less than what he’d seen. Luminescent eyes stared into his, heated, alight, _burning_ with need that Nihlus knew his graze matched.  
  
 _Fuck, I’m not going to last. I can’t I can’t._ “Saren,” He pleaded, not entirely sure what he was asking for.  
  
The man let go of his leg and his waist and took Nihlus’ head in his hands, holding him still as he leaned over him to shove their mouths together. A moan vibrated in Saren’s throat when he eagerly accepted his tongue. In his haste, his passion, Saren had reverted to his clumsy, more forceful style of kissing. Later, he’d find it flattering that the Spectre had lost himself just as much as he had.  
  
And then the man dipped his head down and his mouth landed on the side of Nihlus’ throat. At first it was just warm breath and a slick tongue and Saren tracing patterns on his skin. Then the Spectre bit into him and he broke, coming undone with a loud cry of ecstasy. Amid the static white-out of sensation Saren held him immobile, murmuring into his ear while he came down from the high of yet another nerve shredding orgasm.

When he was able, Nihlus cracked his eyes open, he couldn’t see Saren. He could still feel the man between his legs (which now simply hung off the table) and inside him. With effort, a lot of effort, Nihlus got his hands flat and propped himself up on his elbows.  
  
“Spirits Saren, that was…” Amazing didn’t come close to covering what he’d just experienced.  
  
The Spectre wasn’t looking at his face, rather he was looking between their bodies and Nihlus was suddenly aware of a particular slickness on his chest that was steadily moving downward.  
  
“Um…” He wasn’t sure if he was embarrassed although he didn’t know why he _would_ be.  
  
Saren brought one hand between them and caught some of the fluid on his fingers. Nihlus held his breath as the man’s eyes captured his and that fire in his gaze was a little more like an inferno now. The Spectre raised the hand he’d used to wipe some of the mess off Nihlus’ torso and made sure he got a good look at it and then he opened his mouth. Half convinced that his brain had melted out his ears, he could only stare as Saren’s long blue tongue snaked out and in-between his fingers.  
  
The grin he gave Nihlus was just this side of terrifying but mostly it just thrilled him. His first thought was _I can’t believe he just did that._ And on the heels of that, his second was _I can’t wait to do that to him._ Then Saren was pushing him supine again, pulling completely out of him, contorting his body and then-  
  
 _Spiri- oh fuck._  
  
The Spectre’s tongue slid over the plates of his chest and along the gaps where they connected to his skin; tickling the flesh there as he licked away every bit of Nihlus’ cum. Saren lingered once the mess was gone and gave slight nips at the edges of his plates and just above the smooth skin of his upper stomach. The older man slid his hands under his back and jerked him to a sitting position before he dragged Nihlus the rest of the way off the table. Saren bit lightly at his throat once and then pulled his head down and slammed their mouths together. Shock wore off and Nihlus kissed him back with renewed hunger, losing some of his finesse when he tasted himself on Saren’s tongue. By the time the kiss ended, they were both panting and he was impossibly hard again and absently rubbing himself against the man’s thigh.  
  
Unbelievably, the Spectre smiled - _smiled_ up at him and then faster than Nihlus could prepare for, he was spun around and pushed forward over the table. Saren took hold of his hips and held him still as he thrust all the way back into him with ease. Nihlus moaned and pushed back against the older man, driving that cock even deeper inside himself.  
  
“Nihlus,” He hissed through clenched teeth. “Be still.”  
  
 _Be still, Saren? When you’re shoved so far in me that I can feel the pulse of the blood filling you? When I know you haven’t cum yet? When I was only able to hear the loudest noise you’ve made because it was right next to my ear? When I want to be the one that makes you scream?_  
  
“Fuck that,” Nihlus muttered and gripped the edge of the table for leverage and impaled himself on his mentor’s dick.

Saren’s reaction to that was near volcanic. His talons dug into Nihlus’ hips at the same time the talons of his other hand put trenches in the table next to his head. He had to admire the control that kept Saren from cutting into him the same way while he was simultaneously turned on by the show of strength. He made a low sound of challenge, trying to coax the man into another show of his power and self-control.  
  
The Spectre growled back, a firm overtone of superiority that told Nihlus his attempt to usurp him was wasted. As if to illustrate his point, Saren began slowly rocking in and out of him, far too slowly in Nihlus’ opinion. He knew what the man was capable of, even sort of knew what he liked and he wanted to give him that. On the next thrust, Nihlus shoved back against him and growled another challenge. Saren hissed at him.  
  
“Would you just fuck me already?” Nihlus snapped after a few more slow movements. “Like you do everyone else.”  
  
Behind him Saren stilled and the hand on his hip grew suddenly loose and then twice as tight. He didn’t say anything and he didn’t increase his pace or the power of his movements either. To Nihlus’ growing frustration, the older man slowed down even more, dragging out his strokes. After a moment, all he was aware of was Saren. The fingers of the pale hand next to his head were splayed wide, the dark, nearly black talons resting lightly in the furrows they’d made earlier. The fingers of the hand at his hip were spread wide too and Nihlus felt the barest hint of those talons brushing the base of his shaft and the edges of his pelvic plates.  
  
Without effort, the older man hit that tender area inside him over and over, drawing out gasps and moans. Once he’d begun to lose control of his breathing and the urge to rock back onto Saren’s thrusts became impossible to ignore, Nihlus gave some serious thought to begging the man to fuck him. And he would have were it not for the youthful streak of stubbornness he’d never outgrown.  
  
“Saren,” Or so he’d thought. “Please, please, I need-“  
  
The Spectre hissed at him to be quiet and Nihlus eagerly obeyed with the hope it would earn him what he wanted. In a way it did; Saren didn’t start using that punishingly quick rhythm he favored but he did add more strength to his thrusts. Not long after Nihlus was standing on his toes with his chest flat to the table just trying to take in all of Saren’s length. He could tell by the man’s breathing and the grip on his hip that he was getting closer to his peak. But so was Nihlus and he really didn’t think he was going to last much longer; he also didn’t think Saren was going to help him find that release.  
  
He reached down and got a good grip on the base of his cock only to have the Spectre’s hand join his a moment later. Saren leaned over him, chest pressed firmly to his back as he finally increased his pace. Nihlus felt his breath on the back of his neck, hot and ragged and harsh sounding. He laced his fingers through the ones next to his head and held on tightly, Saren squeezed him back. They fell into a rhythm of hard thrusts and tight strokes, where Nihlus’ motions stopped Saren’s began until it was difficult to tell just who was leading them.

Suddenly, the older man jerked his hand free and grabbed Nihlus’ fringe to wrench his head back. In the same second teeth touched the side of his throat, Saren filled him with a liquid heat over and over and over before collapsing across his back. He still worked Nihlus with his hand, grip firm despite the slickness of natural oils and moments later he came too.  
  
He expected Saren to immediately withdraw from him and stand, to put both physical and emotional distance between them. He did _not_ expect to feel the man’s arms wrap around his waist or for him to lift his head and gently nibble the ends of his fringe.  
  
“Saren?” Nihlus asked with confusion clear in all his tones and half turning but unable to get a look at the man.  
  
“You’re different from them Nihlus.”  
  
 _What in the hell is that supposed to mean?_ “Different how? Because I’m so much younger than you or because I’m a Spectre too?”  
  
Saren followed the length of Nihlus’ spine with a fingertip and gentle pressure; a touch that couldn’t be called anything other than a caress. “I actually like you.”

 _What do I say to something like that?_ Nihlus wondered as Saren lifted off his back and pulled out of him. _How does he even mean it? ‘I actually like you’. What like a person in general? Like a friend? Something…something more than both? Fucking Spirits Saren why don’t you ever just say what you mean?_  
  
But when in doubt, Nihlus had learned one of the best things to do was to repeat the last thing he’d heard as a question. “You ‘like’ me?”  
  
Saren leaned against the table, his hip brushing Nihlus’ shoulder before the younger man got the strength to stand up and copy the man’s position. He shivered in reaction at the man’s cum shifting and slipping out of him. He wasn’t near as shocked as he had been earlier when he noticed his mentor was licking his hand clean with a singular focus. But he wasn’t any less turned on than he had been either.  
  
“You’re a good man.” Saren told him at last. “Despite your upbringing.”  
  
 _Huh?_ “What? Because both my parents were mercs that automatically means I’m not a good person?”  
  
The man scoffed. “Of course not. I was referring to the environment in which you were raised. The lack of a moral compass or code-“  
  
“Fuck you Saren.” Nihlus snapped, angry that after what they’d just done, the way he’d been made to feel, that he would bring that up, and confused by it too. Saren had never cared about a person’s origins and he didn’t see why it mattered now. “My parents had a _moral code_ and my father had _honor_ and my mother _loved_ me. She sent me away to-“  
  
“Spirits you foolish boy, I’m trying to compliment you!”  
  
“Well you suck at it!”  
  
Nihlus pushed off from the table and made it half a step before Saren snagged him around the waist with a thin but strong biotic leash and jerked him back. He was fully prepared to punch the man, he’d even made a fist in preparation but then the Spectre did something that threw him for a loop. Saren nudged his chin up and pressed into his throat. All the vitriol drained from Nihlus in another swelling of confusion and surprise.  
  
“I’m trying to tell you that you exceeded every expectation I ever set forth.” The man muttered into his skin, nipping between the words. “You’ve more than earned your place in the Spectres…. As such I can’t believe myself; your first time and I fucked you on a table.”  
  
He pushed Saren away from his throat and just stared down at him for a handful of seconds. He tried to wrap his brain around the man’s words and realized that if he broke them down to the bare elements, the message was a lot clearer. Saren was proud of him.  
  
“That means a lot to me Saren- wait. What makes you think it was my first time?”  
  
“Your tone just now cemented it in my mind.” The man said dryly. “Gavorn told me the last time we docked at Omega.”  
  
Nihlus continued to stare. “How would Gavorn even get information like that?” He asked dubiously.  
  
“He witnessed you trying to…” The man gestured, as if searching for an appropriate word. “Secure a date and failing miserably.”  
  
“So?” He huffed dismissively even though there was probably some truth to it. “I could have just struck out.”  
  
Next to him Saren laughed just shy of uproariously. “You can charm yourself between an asari’s legs in less than ten minutes Nihlus. You even nearly charmed Aria off her throne before her guards got involved.”  
  
He laughed too. “She was never going to sleep with me. She just thought I was naive and cute.”  
  
“She was correct about you naiveté.” The older man’s subharmonics were openly teasing.  
  
This was a side of Saren he’d never see before and he couldn’t figure out if he liked it or not. Or if it was another of the false personalities he could wear, put on and take off like his armor. On the minuscule chance it wasn’t one of Saren’s ploys, that it was a genuine example of a teasingly affectionate side, Nihlus decided to play along.  
  
“Oh go fuck yourself Saren.” Unfortunately, and partly due to his upbringing, Nihlus’ sense of play bordered on aggressive.

The man slid a hand up his thigh, stopping inches from the juncture and his still loosened plates and he tilted his head until his mouth was next to Nihlus’ throat again. That was the moment he remembered they were both naked. “I’d rather fuck you again.” Saren purred against the back curve of his mandible.  
  
“Yeah?”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
+_-_-_-_-_+  
  
Nihlus woke up stiff and sore but deeply satisfied in ways he hadn’t been for a while. His limbs still felt languid and heavy and Nihlus took a few moments to just enjoy the bone deep gratification of a good tumble. Spirits, he’d never fucked like that before. Obviously Saren was the first man he’d ever slept with but even when he’d been with women he had never felt so fulfilled the following day. Not to mention the slight bit of discomfort in some new and interesting places…  
  
Saren had led him to his room before he threw Nihlus down on the bed with such force that all the air had left his lungs. He hadn’t been able to fill them again before the older man had covered his body with his own and fucked him into the mattress. The pace was a little faster and harder than it had been when he was face down across the table but it still wasn’t quite what Nihlus had seen the Spectre do with his other lovers. He had been so tired, so physically spent and empty that he didn’t even remember falling asleep.  
  
 _Holy fuck…I passed out in Saren’s bed._ He realized when he became aware of the weight of a body next to his. _I slept in Saren’s bed…he let me sleep in his bed. Next to him. Spirits._  
  
Nihlus shifted around slowly and tried not to disturb the man beside him who was apparently still asleep. He levered himself into a sitting position as carefully as he could, leaning against the bulkhead while looking down at his mentor. He’d stopped watching the feed when Saren was alone some time ago, actually Nihlus had quit spying after he’d seen the man have his nightmare. He still slept curled on his side but he didn’t have his hand wrapped around the butt of a gun. Nihlus knew there was one within easy reach –probably under the mattress- because Saren didn’t like to be unarmed for long but he didn’t immediately see one.  
  
Up close and asleep, the man looked years younger. With his mandibles relaxed and his mouth slightly parted, he looked immensely peaceful too. Nihlus could see his eyes moving back and forth beneath the lids and knew Saren was dreaming. About what he could only imagine, but he was definitely deeply asleep. And still utterly naked, his plates and skin seemed to glow in the half-light of his room. Nihlus had to fight not to touch him.  
  
A fight that he lost in short order. Saren was just too tempting a creature; seductive without even trying and all Nihlus could think about was tasting him while he had the chance. Like the man had done last night when he’d licked cum off his hand and then Nihlus’ chest. He’d had his cock licked and sucked before but he’d never had anyone clean it away with their tongue. That Saren had been the one to do it just made him all the more impatient to return the favor.  
  
As if he sensed Nihlus’ intention even in his sleep, the Spectre turned onto his back, head lolling on the pillow and his knees falling open invitingly. His mouth went dry. Saren was absolutely defenseless, his legs spread, the pale grey plates of his groin fully exposed and on display. Nihlus’ skin grew warm and then hot as he got more and more turned on picturing what he could do to his mentor while he was so unguarded.  
  
 _How far can I get before he wakes up?_ Nihlus wondered as he leaned toward the man and then slid slowly down the bed. It took a little doing and some careful maneuvering but in seconds he lay stretched out between Saren’s legs. The man hadn’t even stirred as he positioned himself and he still seemed wholly unaware as Nihlus lowered his head. Eyes on Saren’s face, he gave the seam at the middle of his genital plating a long lick from top to bottom, going slow to savor his taste.  
  
 _Oh sweet Spirits!_ He thought, eyes closing with surprise at Saren’s flavor and swiped his tongue the length of that seam again.  
  
“Mmmm.”  
  
Nihlus froze, tongue pressed firmly to the now slightly parted slit.

Saren’s hand slid over his fringe and then wrapped around the back of his neck with his fingers and talons stroking the skin. “I didn’t tell you to stop Nihlus.” He said and shifted his hips to get Nihlus started again. “Keep going.”  
  
He began immediately and eagerly, lapping at Saren’s groin like it was a treat. In the back of his mind it struck him that licking his mentor like this was very similar to all the times he’d gone down on asari and turian women. At least, it was until the Spectre’s plates slid open that final bit and Nihlus felt his tongue encounter a rapidly growing erection.  
  
Above him, Saren sank into the bed, his head relaxing back on the pillow as he made a quiet sound of pleasure. Nihlus turned his attention to the edges of his plates and the super sensitive connective tissues; he only had to brush his tongue against them to get a reaction from Saren.  
  
 _”Fuck,”_ He hissed and Nihlus flicked his mandibles out in a smile. “Do that again. Harder.”  
  
He obliged Saren by slipping the tip of his tongue along that tissue again.  
  
“I said harder Nihlus.” Spoken with subharmonics full of command, Saren’s hand on the back of his neck pulled him closer. “Hard as you can, you won’t hurt me.”  
  
Nihlus didn’t _want_ to hurt him, he’d thought about it in all the fantasies he’d had where’d he’d pinned Saren down, bit him, scratched him, compelled him into submission. However all he wanted now was to hear the Spectre moan and feel him shiver with pleasure. But knowing how quiet Saren was in all things, he knew he’d really have to work at it to hear more than that soft moan.  
  
He slid one arm under Saren’s back, angling his hips just a little to get a better angle and gave the man another long swipe of his tongue. Nihlus made sure to use more pressure than he had the previous times, in fact, he licked that spot like he was trying shove his tongue into Saren’s skin.  
  
The Spectre gasped as he descended fully hard and slick, his shaft rubbing against Nihlus’ tongue. He reveled in the taste of Saren’s dick, promptly angling his head to lick away the fluid of arousal that was indistinctly bitter but no less pleasing. The older man shifted under him and Nihlus curled his arm and hand until he got a loose hold on a hip. His other hand slid up Saren’s thigh until he reached the base of his cock where it left the spread plates and he gave it a tight squeeze.  
  
Another new reaction from Saren; a shudder. “ _Just_ like that _Castanea_ , exactly like that.”  
  
Nihlus looked up at him, bewildered at the turian centric pet-name. He’d never known Saren to use them with anyone else but it warmed him nonetheless. He lowered his head again and wound his tongue around Saren’s dick, rubbing along its sides and tip before going back to the edges of his plates. Nihlus felt a second hand join the one on the back of his neck, felt it slide up under his fringe to that sensitive spot where the spines connected to his skull. He moaned at the touch causing Saren to buck suddenly and slide along his tongue.  
  
 _Wow._ He thought, again surprised at the things that could garner reactions from his usually stoic mentor. _Who knew he was so responsive?_ Nihlus moaned again, on purpose this time and with fully backed harmonics.  
  
Saren cursed and bucked again. Nihlus withdrew the arm under him and draped it over his stomach to hold him down. The Spectre allowed it, rocking lightly against the hold, sliding his length on Nihlus’ tongue leisurely. He had no delusions about who was really in control. If Saren didn't want to be held down, then he wouldn't be. He was simply granting Nihlus the novelty of overpowering him. And he wasn’t really _overpowering_ Saren, at least, that wasn’t his intention but he could admit to enjoying the illusion of it…because it felt like a game. And Nihlus liked games, especially the kind that involved two naked adults.

He shook his head, knocking Saren’s hands loose, holding one of them to the bed when the man tried to grab his fringe. The Spectre put his free arm behind his head and smirked at Nihlus before nodding his permission. He took his tongue all along Saren’s length, curled it around the head and then went back down to trace patterns where he emerged from his plates. Letting go of the hand he’d pinned, Nihlus slid it back up Saren’s thigh and then between them.  
  
He remembered the night before, bent over the crate and then the table, Saren’s fingers and later his cock too, touching on some place inside him. Nihlus remembered the flare of pleasure and heat he’d felt when the Spectre had hit that spot over and over. Did Saren know how being touched there felt? Did he know about the intensity of it? Had anyone _ever_ touched him inside the way he’d touched Nihlus?  
  
 _If no one has…then I have to. Fuck I really, really want to._  
  
Nihlus gave the man one final, long lick from base to tip and then back down. He touched the area between cock and hole lightly with his thumb and caught Saren’s gaze with his own to make sure the man understood what he wanted to do.

The Spectre twitched one mandible and gave a subharmonic hum of inquiry and Nihlus pressed against him in answer. Saren blinked once and resettled himself on the arm behind his head. He spread his legs a little wider and Nihlus felt one of his knees brush his side.  
  
“Can you…” He hesitated, rubbed a slow circle, probed gently. “When you were inside me, you touched this spot and it felt…Where is that?”  
  
Saren’s mandibles fluttered. “Oh, that’s what you meant.”  
  
Nihlus blinked. “What did you think I meant?”  
  
“Nihlus,” Saren ran a hand over his fringe, another small and affectionate gesture from a man that had never shown any before. “While I appreciate your enthusiasm and your desire to please me is endearing, frankly you don’t know what you’re doing down there.”  
  
The man had a point; he didn’t have a single clue what he was doing, not practically. Nihlus did know, in theory, that he could slip his fingers into Saren and touch him in some really intimate ways. _If_ he knew where to touch that was, Nihlus could give him so much pleasure, hopefully like what the man had given him and he wanted to do that. Again his mind flashed back to that room in the mercenary outpost and the waist high crate…  
  
“You’re right,” He said quietly and stopped his circular caress, laid his hand across the man’s thigh instead.  
  
“Perhaps I could teach you,” Saren told him with almost idle subvocals and Nihlus couldn’t tell if he was being insincere. “At another time but for the moment, you were doing quite well with your tongue...For someone that’s never done it before.”  
  
Nihlus wagged it at him playfully, earning a slight chuckle. “You want me to continue?”  
  
The hand that had been petting his fringe slid back to his nape and nudged him again. “I do.” Saren’s voice was full of want and Nihlus had half a mind to give a little resistance, just for fun, but the man let his head fall back with a sigh and then all he could think about was pulling more sounds from him.  
  
He went at Saren with more fervency this time, licking harder and trying to reach all of him. Nihlus ran his tongue over the retracted plates and the connective tissues, wound around the base of him and then slid back up the length. He did it over and over again, varying his speed and the order in which he licked. Sometimes he lapped at Saren forcefully and then feather light and finally somewhere in between. The Spectre’s hold on the back of his neck was loose but constant and reassuring. When Saren started rocking up to meet his tongue, Nihlus had to add more weight to the arm across his stomach to keep him from thrusting into his mouth carelessly. The last thing he wanted was for the man to cut himself on his teeth, not that Nihlus had actually taken him into his mouth but accidents happened.  
  
When he concentrated his efforts at the base of Saren’s cock, pushing his tongue into the vulnerable flesh of his sheath, the man moaned. It was the first real sound of pleasure Nihlus had heard from him and he eagerly tried to wrench out another one. Again he pushed his tongue in deeper, it couldn’t go in more than a few centimeters but that was all that was needed to make the Spectre suck in a tight breath before he moaned again.  
  
Nihlus relished the sound, pulled another and another from him, overjoyed to hear Saren get louder and more anxious for release. When he felt like he’d taken the Spectre closer to the edge than he wanted, he slowed the strokes of his tongue and left that part of the man’s body alone. For the moment anyway, he might go back to it later and see what other types of noises he could earn. Nihlus returned to his earlier technique of unpredictable speeds and pressures and in a couple of moments Saren shivered in a very particular way.  
  
His hand shifted until he could grab Nihlus’ fringe and pulled his head back. “Either back off Nihlus,” He warned without malice. “Or wear it.”  
  
Nihlus’ heart skipped a beat and against the bed, his own plates began that first shift. _He_ had pushed Saren to his limit and was about to earn his reward; the man’s cum on his tongue.  
  
“How about I just swallow it?” He purred brazenly.

It didn’t take much to push Saren over that final bit. All Nihlus had to do was open his mouth and support the man’s cock with his tongue as he pinned it to his palate and gave a subtonal hum that was just vibration without meaning. The Spectre arched so much that he had to hold his hips down to avoid being choked or causing some kind of injury to him. Saren’s seed shot down his throat, fire hot and thick, tasting of a unique spice or musk Nihlus couldn’t identify but liked anyway if only because it was his mentor’s flavor.  
  
The best part though, was the noise Saren made as orgasm tore through him. A loud, lust filled growl that reverberated through his entire body. Nihlus moved back when he’d swallowed all he could, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand and taking his arm off Saren’s stomach. He knelt between the man’s legs, catching his breath and savoring the sight of his lover spread out on the sheets and covered in a layer of sweat.  
  
Or maybe the best part was just how breathless Saren was when he spoke. “Spirits _Castanea_ , that may have been the best head I’ve ever gotten.”  
  
Nihlus felt a growth of pride in himself and a tiny sliver of doubt at the man’s words. He was a novice at this type of thing and Saren…well Saren certainly wasn’t. He was probably just trying to flatter him and make him feel wanted. Not that he needed to but that Saren had even bothered to praise him and for the second time since they’d started this thing, had to mean _something._  
  
“You don’t believe me.” The man stated knowingly. “You think, because of all the lovers I’ve had, that I’ve had much better than what you just did. Trust my words when I say it’s less about skill and more about the passion you put into the act.”  
  
Nihlus grew warm with embarrassment and at the thought of how much of his passion he wanted to show Saren. How he already wanted to give the man more of himself, taste him again and feel him buried deep inside again. He crawled forward over Saren, straddled his thighs and without warning, kissed the man hard. The Spectre groaned into his mouth, tasting himself on Nihlus’ tongue and running his hands all over him. Suddenly he was on his back with Saren rising to his knees over him and positioned firmly between his thighs.  
  
“Let me show you what I mean Nihlus.” He murmured, leaning down. “I know you’ll enjoy everything I’m going to do to you.”

The Spectre’s mouth slanted over his, tongue delving deep and taking a very thorough taste of him. Nihlus touched him from neck to hip, lingering on the sensitive skin of his waist. Beneath his fingertips he felt Saren’s muscles bunching and twitching with delight as the man broke from the kiss and ducked down to his throat. He left a series of gentle nips and hard bites on his way down Nihlus’ torso.  
  
He arched and moaned under the treatment of Saren’s mouth as he slid lower and lower, stopping just short of his recently freed erection. The man crawled back up his body and kissed him without breaking eye-contact and there was an unusual softness buried deep in the silver of his gaze but then he blinked and it was gone. Nihlus couldn’t fathom what that softness might mean or imagine that Saren had ever looked at other lovers the same, so he just kissed him back with everything he had.  
  
The Spectre had always been wild and fierce with everyone Nihlus had ever seen him take. But he’d never witnessed the same level of passion or…attentiveness to his lovers’ needs as Saren was being for him.  
  
 _“You’re different from them Nihlus.”_ He’d said and maybe he’d even been honest. Nihlus smiled up at him warmly and lifted a hand to stroke the edge of one of his mandibles.  
 _Only one way to really find out._ Nihlus thought, his muscles bunching for a reason other than delight. _Spirits help me if I’m wrong._  
  
He bucked up and twisted in the same motion, dislodging Saren’s heavier form only because the move had been so sudden. In a matter of seconds he was on his back beneath Nihlus who knelt as lightly as possible above him and stared down at his impassive face; waiting. It was different from mounting the man while he slept. Nihlus had been taking advantage of the situation then, now he was hoping for permission. Long moments passed in stillness and silence before Saren’s mandibles spread into the smallest of smiles. Nihlus hummed in relief and gratitude at the sight before leaning down to kiss him again.  
  
Saren turned his head away, avoiding the touch. “Stop looking at me like that.”  
  
He leaned further down to the pale throat, touched his tongue to the skin. “Like what Saren?”  
  
“Like I matter to you.”  
  
Nihlus paused, Saren’s moods were random by nature but this was becoming ridiculous. “I um, you-“  
  
The Spectre reached out and stroked over his fringe on the way to cupping the base of his skull. With his other hand he grasped Nihlus’ dick and started firmly pumping him. By the second time Saren made it down to his base and the slick edges of his groin plates, he was already gasping and rocking into the touch.  
  
“It’s just sex Nihlus.” Saren told him, his subtones holding both reproach and sympathy in equal measure. “Granted, it’s very good sex, but it’s still only sex. I don’t do the boyfriend thing, one man isn’t going to keep me satisfied for long. I’ll fuck you all you want but don’t ask anything more of me. And don’t look at me like I have a place in your heart.”  
  
If that hand hadn’t been wrapped so tightly around his cock, maybe Nihlus would have been able to process what he was being told. This thing with Saren was not a permanent arrangement and it never would be. However all he heard was _It’s very good sex and I’ll fuck you all you want_ as he thrust with abandon into Saren’s hand. The man shifted under him, wrecking his balance so that his knees slid outward on the mattress and put him firmly astride his hips. He could feel Saren quickly getting harder and thicker against his backside and the heat of that flesh was maddening.  
  
Again he wondered just how he was different from the others. Nihlus thought of the people he’d seen the Spectre with the most, the ones that were constant. Cicero, who Saren hurt, Gavorn who he teased and Kuril who he overpowered.  
  
 _And the Councilor, what about him? How had Saren been with him? How is he going to be with me?_

Nihlus must have blinked because suddenly everything tilted and he was the one on his back with the older man arched over him. The questions dug at him even as Saren began nibbling on his throat again, the hand between his legs lazily stroking him. They were distracting and he didn’t want to be distracted by errant thoughts, not when the man he’d wanted for so long was touching him with so much intent the air was heavy with need.  
  
He shook his head to clear it but couldn’t stop himself from asking. “How am I different from…your favorite trio?”  
  
Saren threw his head back on a laugh and paused his languid strokes. “My favorite trio,” He repeated, still chuckling. “Gavorn only wants me to make him beg. Kuril thinks that his top tier father will open any door for him and is a royal asshole as a result. Cicero likes it when I make him bleed and he likes to do the same to me. It’s not something I enjoy every time I fuck. But you, Nihlus, _you_ just want to make me cum and hear me purr. And that I do enjoy.”  
  
Nihlus stared up at him, his mouth hanging open. “R-really?”  
  
“Yes, _Castanea_ , really. Now, are your curiosities satisfied?”  
  
He could only nod as Saren started pumping him again.  
  
“Good,” His smirk was devious and beautiful. “Because now I’m going to make _you_ purr and cum for me.”  
  
Nihlus stopped thinking completely and ran solely on instinct and sensation. Saren’s hands slid over his sides and down to squeeze his backside, leaving jolts of electricity in his wake. He grasped Nihlus’ thighs and pulled them over his hips, encouraging them to wrap around him. He did, tightly crossing his ankles above Saren’s ass to hold him close and grabbed the keel bone at his chest to pull him into a hard kiss.  
  
The Spectre used everything Nihlus had taught him to kiss him senseless, breathless, igniting a heat in him that rivaled the electricity dancing all over his skin and plates. Abruptly Saren rolled them to the side and then Nihlus found himself sitting in the man’s lap with his legs still wrapped around him. He knew immediately what he wanted as the man shifted his hands to hips and gave him a squeeze, lifting him up over the head of his cock. Nihlus nodded at him and let his body go pliant as Saren brought him back down and impaled him with a hard thrust.  
  
He made a low sound and shuddered in the Spectre’s arms, inadvertently tightening around him. Saren bit lightly at his throat and pulled at his hips as he thrust up into Nihlus slowly. He’d thought the man had been as deep in him as possible last night, but astride him, at such a steep angle, Saren’s dick pierced him in a new way. It was almost painful but definitely intense and getting more so with every movement they made. When Nihlus started grinding down on his lap, Saren put a hand on his chest and held him back.  
  
“What?” He murmured.  
  
The Spectre pushed at him until he lost his balance and more or less toppled backwards, managing to catch himself on his elbows at the last moment. The older man’s hand traveled down his chest to the top of his stomach and kept him from rising. Nihlus expected the man to cover his body much the same way he had before but Saren stayed sitting between his legs and his cock stayed buried deeply inside him.  
  
 _And I thought riding him was an interesting angle._ Nihlus grinned to himself and gave a slight tilt to his pelvis causing Saren to clutch him and hold him still. Again the man pulled him down while he shoved up.  
  
Nihlus groaned and his head fell back to rest against his cowl. Saren repeated the move a few more times, each one a little more rough. He didn’t resist but he didn’t help either, letting the man control both their bodies and set the rhythm he wanted. In the hours since their…affair had begun, Nihlus already loved being at his mercy. What little of it there was to be had.  
  
Shortly, the Spectre had him panting and moaning. Supporting his weight on his arms while Saren took him with a languorous expertise that inhabited everything the man did. Nihlus let his eyes slip closed at some point and just enjoyed every touch and thrust and lick-  
  
“Fuck!”

Somehow, in some mysterious and magical and _impossible_ way, Saren tongued the tip of his cock while thrusting into him. As Nihlus started muttering a sting of colorful curses and insults, the man just chuckled and pulled his body up. Saren’s dick slid out of him and his tongue slithered further down the side of his shaft to wrap around the base once before retreating and reversing.  
  
When Nihlus finally managed to lift his head he found the Spectre staring at him and grinning smugly. Saren jerked his hips down at the same time he dragged his tongue swiftly up the underside of his cock.  
  
“Fuck.” He said again and allowed his head to fall, knowing that his lover could see every line of his throat and probably even the beat of his pulse. “Fuck Saren, fuck.”  
  
It only got better. Saren would lift him by the hips until Nihlus slid fully into his mouth and he could feel the muscles in his throat working as he swallowed to hug the tip of him. Then he’d be shoved back down and the Spectre would go deep inside him, always, _always_ hitting that sweet spot hard and with precision. Like last time, Nihlus had a serious mental dilemma of _where do I put my hands_ when Saren took him completely into his mouth for a brief moment. He grabbed at the man’s shoulders but his hands just slid off they were shaking so much.  
  
The Spectre pulled him down firmly and held him there, cock pulsing inside him with the beat of his heart. Then he caught one of Nihlus’ hands and led it to the back of his neck, placing it there deliberately.  
  
“I don’t mind if you guide my head a little but don’t force me down.” Saren told him quietly, his tones rough, and began again.  
  
Nihlus was without words, without thought and he could only weakly hold onto the man. Saren kept shifting, never staying with one motion for more than a moment and he kept achingly slow. His tongue caressed and explored the head of Nihlus’ cock while he rolled his hips in a slow up and down motion, going all the way into him. When he withdrew all the way, Saren was able to lower his head until his breath fanned over Nihlus’ stomach, making him shiver. Then the Spectre slammed back into him, making him scream.  
  
The amazing dual sensations of tongue and dick had Nihlus feeling boneless, weightless. Saren had no problems raising and lowering his hips or supporting his back as he was tasted and fucked simultaneously. All he could do was float, suspended in ecstasy like nothing he’d ever known before.  
  
 _I'll never find anything that tops this._ Nihlus thought muddily.  
  
He became aware of a steady tremor in his chest, a constant drone of content and pleasure. Nihlus realized he was purring like Saren had promised he would and he couldn’t remember when he’d started. The man suddenly increased the pace of his hips and the pressure from his tongue and all he could do was cling to the back of his neck, feeling the metal edge of his bio-amp scraping at his fingers.  
  
There was no way he was going to last past more than a handful of strokes and licks, he was too close to breaking. “Saren,” He whispered, his subvocals full of supplication. “Saren _please_.”  
  
The man growled with his tongue wrapped around the tip of his cock and the vibration slammed into him. Orgasm ripped through Nihlus hard, it felt so good it hurt and he threw his head back on a snarling scream of a sound. His spine bowed and the muscles in his legs where they were wrapped around Saren’s waist bunched and tightened. Even his toes curled at the intensity of his release and he was overcome with feeling.  
  
Saren kept at him, thrusting harder and giving a few more licks to his dick, gently over the head and harder down the side of his shaft. Then he surged to his knees, pulling Nihlus’ body along with ease before pinning him down in a much more comfortable position.

He stared up into silver eyes, his own half lidded, as the man leaned over him before shoving their mouths together and kissing him with a wild passion. Nihlus remembered that he still held the back of Saren’s neck and he pulled the Spectre firmly to him with that hold. He wrapped his other arm around the man, hand sliding down his lower back until he reached the swell of his ass. Saren growled into his mouth before jerking away and diving toward his throat. Nihlus didn’t feel his teeth, just the pressure from his jaw as it closed. He was too focused on the cock inside him, aware that Saren’s motions had gotten frantic and lost their smooth rhythm.  
  
The Spectre was obviously chasing his own release and Nihlus ached to help him find it. He dug his talons into the skin around his amp until Saren’s teeth left his throat and then he shoved a hand up under his jaw, gripping and turning his head. Lunging forward he bit Saren forcefully, he didn’t break the skin but he didn’t have to.  
  
The bite was apparently all the man needed to go over his edge because Saren came the instant Nihlus sank his teeth in. It was like the night before, the Spectre’s cock swelling and jerking in his hole as he emptied himself into Nihlus again and again as deeply as he could. When he finally stopped thrusting, stopped cumming, Saren flung himself down on his back next to him.  
  
“When you’ve recovered _Castanea_ , you can go.” He was twice as breathless as Nihlus, his chest heaving.  
  
For a single second he was disappointed but he was too well-fucked to let the disappointment or frustration at being brushed aside linger. It certainly wasn’t like he’d thought the man was going to change. _Not so different from them after all…but at least he’s not cold about it._ “Yeah, yeah. Just give a minute Saren.”  
  
Saren hummed a reply but Nihlus was so bone-tired he missed it. Satisfaction and exhaustion dragged him down into a dreamless sleep.  
  
+_-_-_-_-_+  
  
For the second time in as many days, Nihlus woke up sore and satisfied with Saren still sleeping beside him. This time the man was on his stomach, stretched to his full height with his head cradled on his arms. Nihlus felt a flare of desire burn through him and his plates parted almost instantly, his cock swelling in its sheath. His eyes traced over the man’s form, the slight dip in Saren’s lower back that led to the curve of his ass practically begged to be tasted and he couldn’t stop himself from wanting to do exactly that. Nihlus rolled toward him quickly, not caring if the Spectre woke and half wanting him to, and grabbed his hips hard.  
  
Saren woke and had turned over partway before Nihlus’ tongue had even touched his skin. “What are you doing?” He demanded without anger, just plain curiosity.  
  
He touched his tongue to the indentation over the man’s spine, pressed all of his mouth to the skin a moment later. Beneath him, Saren relaxed back against the bed with a barely heard sigh.  
  
“Just wanted to do that,” He said into the warm flesh and settled down on his side next to the Spectre again.  
  
Saren’s head still rested on his arms, the very pictured of nonchalance, as he regarded Nihlus with tired eyes and a slant to his mandibles that looked like a smirk. “Anything else you want to do?”  
  
Nihlus sucked in a surprised breath. “That’s quite the invitation Saren.”  
  
“Is it?” The man’s primary tone was wholly unconcerned but the secondary one underneath it was openly mischievous.  
  
 _“Perhaps I could teach you. At another time…”_  
  
Nihlus smiled. “I want to play a game.”  
  
“Oh? What’s that?”  
  
He grabbed Saren’s hip and used it to urge the man onto his back. Nihlus immediately straddled him, hands on his chest to keep him still. “It’s called ‘Fuck the Spectre’.”  
  
END

 

**Author's Note:**

> Hehehehe. They’re both Spectres now. Anyway, there will be a sequel as I’m again filling one of my own prompts. http://masseffectkink.livejournal.com/7674.html?thread=37078778 I’m working on it now but it’s going to be a bit. There’s a medical thing happening at the start of January and I’ll be out of commission for at least a month. I’m also thinking of writing an interlude of sorts, about what Saren was doing while Nihlus was with Rivale. Basically I want to explore his past with Sparatus and how that shapes his relationship with Nihlus. We’ll see how that goes…. And in case you're wondering, Castanea is the genus of the chestnut, which I picked in reference to Nihlus’ coloring. Kind of dumb, but could you really see Saren calling Nihlus something like “babe” or “honey”? Yeah, me neither. One last thing, I wanted to share that the whole time I was writing Nihlus going down on Saren, my brain would not shut up on one particular thing: How many licks does it take? If you don’t know what I mean, just watch this_ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZ0epRjfGLw


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